wooded area.
“We’ve got the car!” she cried, her nerves firing wildly. “Please!”
The murderer pushed the driver toward the ditch.
“Just take the car,” the traveler said as he slid down the loose stone and gravel at the road’s edge. “Take it.”
“Let’s take the car!” Karen screamed.
“Yeah, take it. It’s just…” The driver’s voice was cut off by a shot. A plume of red appeared on the far side of his head. He toppled.
“No!” Karen ran at her captor. “You can’t do that! No!”
The murderer spun toward her with gun raised. The barrel rammed her face, clinked off her teeth. She lurched back.
“Get in the car!” the murderer hissed. “Now!”
For a second, Karen tried to find the martyr in her soul. But death was meaningless to this man. “Evil!” she screamed at him, pointing at his face. “Evil!”
“Now!” the murderer barked, starting toward her. He slapped her hand aside. “In the car!”
He pushed her with his free hand. She fell to a knee. He gripped her arm, lifted and threw her against the car. “Get in!” He pulled the passenger door open, shoved her. She kicked at his crotch but he turned and her heel glanced off his hip. He leapt on her, pushed her face violently against the seat. His fingers dug into her neck like steel spikes. He punched her behind the ear, and she screamed.
Cawood heard his breath close, and she swung her head up. There was a thump as it connected with his forehead
He cursed and hit her with the gun.
She felt him arch his back, press his hips into her buttocks. She pushed back into him, screaming. He was aroused. She heard the jangle of his belt buckle.
The murderer spat a curse and slapped the back of her head. Pain shot through her temples as he made a hissing noise and pulled her skirt up, ripped her pantyhose and underwear aside. And he entered her. The gun barrel scraped against the back of her skull as he thrust into her, growling like a mad dog. And she pushed back against him, suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of vicious desire. And he grunted, and thrust harder. He pressed her face against the seat; the gun barrel cut the side of her face.
As he climaxed, so did she. But her heart beat with grotesque satisfaction. Her abdomen quivered and her thighs shook. Maybe that was why she was here. She was as sick as he was. The murderer cursed and snarled and pushed himself off her. He grabbed her wrists and shoved them painfully against the dashboard. Karen turned her head as he lashed her hands to the steering wheel with his belt. The leather bit into her flesh as he pulled on the knot with all his strength.
“Didn’t hurt you,” he spat at her. “You’re a nun?”
Cawood smiled back at him with carnal desire, for the first time, feeling some power. She wanted him to hurt her. Emotion wrinkled the corner of the man’s eye.
He hissed into her ear-intimately familiar. “Wait.” Her cheek burned from his stubble. He pulled the car keys free, then climbed out. She heard him scramble down the sandy embankment.
He came back and freed her hands-pushed her into her seat. As he turned the car north, he spoke. “I don’t kill without a reason. You don’t enjoy rape without one.”
“You didn’t have to kill him!” Karen’s voice broke.
“A sacrifice,” he growled.
“To who?” she screamed.
“Me.” The killer smirked. “Who were you sacrificing to?”
Sitting on the bed, Karen Cawood remembered their only conversation. Afterward, his manner had hardened to something mechanical. This killer was powerful. And he was remorseless. But he wasn’t perfect. She wasn’t the only one who enjoyed the rape.
43 – Shootout at the Pig’s House
Felon watched the dining room through a two-way mirror studying his old companions for signs of strength. The assassin always searched for strength first. Successful human hunters did not look for weakness alone. Weaknesses were obvious. Vulnerabilities drew a predator like a magnet. Since Felon trusted his instincts his intellect was free to focus on potential dangers. So as in the case of the group before him, he looked for the strongest. That’s the one he had to worry about.
They were former Regulators, once paid by nascent Authority in the early days of the Change to deal with the uncooperative dead. Regulators would be sent in to quash riots and settle disputes. That was usually done with heavy caliber machine guns, machetes and bulldozers. When the political price of Regulators grew too high, they were “deputized” into the growing Authority forces, or declared “undesirables” and hunted down like criminals. Felon freelanced with Regulators but never considered himself one of them. The legal vacuum they represented was often a convenient place to hide a hit. But the majority of them were amateurs.
This trio wanted nothing to do with Authority ranks so formed a larger group of criminals with similar tastes that they called the Wild Bunch. Felon had known the trio, and others from their gang for decades.
But looking at them now, he felt nothing. They’d worked together over the years, off and on, Felon bringing them on as hired guns. The whole thing had almost blown apart on a northern lake five decades after the Change. They had been a tough well-organized team of outlaws at the time, hired to help him track down an informant who was in the protection of some lowlife detective trying to make a name for himself wearing clown makeup. The informant was an Authority Operative who could prove the Prime was going to manipulate election results to get into power.
The pressure was on and time was short so Felon needed lots of extra bodies to track them down. He farmed out some of the work to independent contractors. That was a mistake. Amateurs and hangers-on were brought. The detective got wise and Felon almost got killed. The clown had unexpected allies. Felon killed him, but the informant got back to the City of Light. News of his existence brought a whistleblower out of the political woodwork, and that had slowed the Prime’s takeover for a decade. Felon didn’t get paid, and rightly so. He’d made the mistake of letting his feelings get involved. He underestimated the detective.
But these gunmen had proven themselves over the intervening years. Tiny was the brains of the operation, sharing leadership with the Texan, Driver. Felon appreciated Driver’s comprehensive knowledge of the art of killing, and had on many occasions discussed the finer points of it. He was a daring and experienced getaway man as well and so his name. Tiny, on the other hand, still carried some of his pre-Change bourgeois attitudes. He still believed a man’s measure came in how much cash was folded in his pocket. Felon did not trust him as much when it came to action.
Bloody was a problem. He was a big reckless murderer who hid behind a thin visage of education. Felon knew that education was easy. Wisdom was something else. He’d proven that when Bloody turned a stupid argument over guns into a reason for Felon to kill him. Eight years before, Felon got to a job early and Bloody was the only one there. He was drunk and aggressive. He started into an argument over whether his weapon, a. 45 magnum Colt, was better than a. 9 mm automatic because of its killing power.
Felon held that accuracy was everything. The big gunman insisted that fear won a gunfight, and the bigger the gun, the greater the fear. Felon wasn’t afraid of anything. A gun was just a machine. You had to fear the man holding it.
Bloody took that as an insult and reached for his. 45. It got caught in his belt, which was another criticism Felon had offered about its antique shape versus the. 9 mm’s sleek design. The assassin drew his. 9 mm and shot the gunman eight times.
The assassin had left then, and did not return. There was a good chance that Bloody’s friends would want revenge. He’d prefer talking to them at a distance, after tempers cooled.
But they hadn’t talked since. Looking at Bloody now, Felon could see that the dead gunman had allowed himself to dehydrate and grow stiff. His movements spoke to that. The fool wouldn’t be much in a gunfight, but
