Damnation Code (William Massa) - William Massa Page 0,14
fled the cemetery.
Talon let out a heaving sob and wept. The pouring rain hammered down on his haunted visage, washing away the tears but not the pain.
Not the rage.
The flames of anger burning within him could only be extinguished in one way…
Vengeance.
CHAPTER FIVE
EARLY MORNING SUNLIGHT raked Erik’s house. While the incessant downpour had tapered off, Talon’s clothes were still wet and streaked with mud and dried blood. Dark rings circled his sunken eyes.
A decision had been made. He wouldn’t continue to wallow in self-pity or lash out at the world. Michelle wouldn’t want him torn apart by grief. Direct action was required. Her killers still walked the Earth, but their days were numbered. This certainty calmed Talon and filled him with a new sense of purpose.
A new mission.
He knocked on the door, not expecting Erik to show. To his surprise his old friend did emerge. For a moment the two soldiers regarded each other in the gray dawn. For Erik uncertainty mixed with shame.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Talon said. He meant what he said. It had been wrong to use Erik as a scapegoat for his own grief and guilt.
Erik’s face relaxed. “What are you going to do?”
“What do you think?”
Erik’s brows furrowed with concern. “This isn’t Afghanistan, Talon. You start going after these fuckers, the cops will hunt you down.”
“They can try.”
“Let me help you, at least.”
“I could use a place to stay, a base of operations.”
Erik’s eyes flickered at that and the old light edged into them, transforming him into the warrior Talon met on the battlefield all those years ago.
Erik waved him inside. “Mi casa es su casa, compadre.”
***
Before Talon could hunt down Michelle’s murderers, he needed to get a better feel for his newest enemy. The first order of business was checking the Chronicle’s website. Within seconds he found a story on Michelle’s murder. The article stated that she’d been stabbed multiple times and also mentioned the fact that her boyfriend discovered the body.
The piece felt like a beat-by-beat replay of the reporting that was dominating local TV news. It touched on the pentagram and theorized about an occult angle, but these salient details didn’t seem to elicit much outrage from the public. In a world where terrorists were tweeting decapitation photos of Americans, pentagrams and black candles weren’t all that scary anymore. So the world is a madhouse — what else is new?
Talon combed the Internet for other occult crimes committed in the Bay Area over the last few months. His search produced a number of hits. Michelle’s murder appeared to be the fifth crime in an escalating series of cases. The one that jumped out the most for Talon was the brutal killing of an Uber driver. Two other murders had occurred at the same time, followed by three suicides. Witness accounts placed some of the suicides near the crime scenes. This prompted speculation about a murder-suicide pact and the possibility that the perpetrators belonged to a cult.
A cult.
This wasn’t ISIS, Al Qaeda or one of their many offshoots. This was different. Now he faced a homegrown organization with no discernible political agenda.
What am I up against?
As Talon internalized the articles, he spotted Michelle’s byline on a series of them. Finally there was something connecting her to the cult murders. Had her stories turned her into a target?
Talon had seen enough dead reporters to know how dangerous the job could be. Many times he’d wished Michelle did something else for a living. But just as Michelle would never ask him to turn his back on his military career, he couldn’t expect her to stop chasing a good story. They were born risk-takers, defined by their willingness to put it all on the line.
Rereading the news items provided little in terms of explanation for why Michelle was singled out by the cult. Her reporting was in-depth and sensitive toward the victims, but it didn’t differ substantially from the stories generated by competing news outlets.
Talon decided to head to the paper’s offices and talk to Michelle’s editor-in-chief, Richard Powell. He might be able to shed some light on the events leading up to her murder.
This time around, stepping into the newspaper offices gutted Talon. Reminders of Michelle were everywhere. Framed awards and articles that bore her name, photographs of her with friends and colleagues whom she’d pointed out to him. He’d entered Michelle’s world, and these mementos of her impact on it made her absence even more pronounced.
The receptionist uttered a meek hello and fought