Lone Wolf - J.R. Rain Page 0,62

being caught and thought he was a match for the man pursuing him.

That man being me.

I bounced off the wall as I took the right-hand turn (I’m not really built for maneuverability) and kept after him. He was quick and I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, but I wasn’t going to slow down. Not after I’d been tracking the SOB for days. He was mine.

His name was Edward Atkinson, and he’d killed thirteen women over a period of two years in ways I didn’t want to think about. Not only that, but Atkinson had died once already. His death just hadn’t taken.

Technically, he wasn’t actually ‘alive’ now, his body was just good at faking it. Once you’re on earth, your body sort of reverts to factory settings, so Atkinson appeared just like any other living human being. At least, to those who didn’t know better. To me, Atkinson had a blue aura around his body that marked him as a soul escaped from its proper place. Most people couldn’t see that aura, but I wasn’t one hundred percent human either. Although that percentage does seem to have shifted over the years.

The traffic screeched to a halt as Atkinson ran out into the road to an accompaniment of blaring car horns and native New Yorkers yelling a series of colorful suggestions as to what Atkinson could do with himself.

I pursued the killer across the road, and someone hurled a disposable coffee cup in my direction, but I paid no attention. All my focus was on Atkinson, now dashing into the next alley, still managing to keep ahead of me. He ran like his life was on the line; which, in a way, it was.

I followed him, vaulting the trash cans he shoved into my path (which is traditional in a chase through New York alleyways). One of his victims had been an undercover cop. She’d been well-trained, armed, and there had been people stationed nearby to help her if she needed it. None of that had helped, and the case was something of a scandal at the time for the NYPD. They’d underestimated Atkinson just like everyone else had. He looked normal. He acted normal. He’d been brought in for questioning twice, but had fooled everyone, able to lie convincingly, and he was quite at home with his own guilt because he had no guilt.

Entering another alley (this part of New York seemed to be nothing but alleyways), Atkinson ricocheted from door to door, trying to find one that had been left open or, failing that… finding a fire exit that rattled uncertainly on its hinges. My target backed up and charged, shoulder barging through and disappearing into the darkness beyond. I was at the doorway seconds later, following Atkinson in.

I should have been more cautious.

Caught up in the heat of the chase, I just kept going, not bothering to check whether it was safe. Rookie mistake, and not the sort of thing I usually did, but Atkinson was a wily customer. In the last week, I’d lost him twice already and I didn’t plan to lose him a third time.

That driving need was making me careless.

As I went through the door, I heard the breath of air as the bottle swung downwards and the glass shattered against my head. There was a blaze of pain across my cheek and the right side of my head, the impact bringing me to my knees. And there was lots of blood.

Now it was Atkinson’s turn to make a mistake.

If he’d kept running, then I probably wouldn’t have been able to catch him; he had a head start and I was dopey from the blow to the head. But Atkinson was more than a killer and less than a man.

Some people become killers through greed or a bad upbringing, then there are those like Edward Atkinson who are born that way. There’s something rotten and twisted inside them, and it would take something miraculous to get them off the path to Hell. Usually, those miracles never came.

Atkinson turned to face me and smiled as he realized there was a wounded and vulnerable person standing in front of him. I was more than sure every fiber of his being told him to take advantage of that fact, to finish the job and enjoy it. He fingered the broken bottle with a grin of relish, no doubt contemplating all the hideous things those jagged shards could do to a person.

The blow from the