Occult Assassin: The Complete Series (Books 1-6) Page 3

  Tears welled in Michelle’s eyes as he continued. “The last two years have been the happiest years of my life, despite some of the worst combat I’ve had to endure. Knowing that you’re in my life, Michelle, reminds me what I’m fighting for.”

  Talon took a deep breath and opened the ring case. He’d purchased the ring — a three-diamond in 15K white gold — in New York City’s jewelry district. An old Army buddy turned jeweler helped him pick out something tasteful and beautiful. It was only right that the woman who’d transformed his world receive a ring worthy of her.

  Michelle was both sobbing and giggling now. Talon never got a chance to actually mouth his proposal as she engulfed him in a bear hug. Her kisses and tears spoke louder than words.

  Talon’s heart beat with joy as they headed to Michelle’s rent-controlled townhouse in Mission Bay. The moment they stepped into her place, Talon attacked her and they hit the carpet. Within seconds the clothes had come off in a heady, fumbling rush of animal passion and pent-up emotion. They both shook as they climaxed, soaked in perspiration.

  They laid on the floor, hands and bodies entwined. The problems of the world seemed a million miles away. The blood and dust of the wars Talon was fighting belonged to another reality.

  There was only Michelle and himself. Their bodies. Their passion. Their love.

  They were still recuperating from their lovemaking, sipping beer and snacking on chips when Talon’s phone buzzed.

  Damn it!

  He ignored the call, but whoever was trying to reach him refused to take no for an answer. After the fourth call, his cell vibrated with two incoming text messages. Someone desperately needed to get in touch with him. Not tomorrow, or in an hour, but right now. Cursing under his breath, he pulled away from Michelle.

  “I’m sorry…” He scanned the phone and his face fell.

  “Is it Erik?” Michelle asked with concern. She remembered the sergeant all too well.

  Talon nodded. Michelle’s lipstick and mascara were smeared, her hair tangled. God, she’s beautiful, he thought.

  “He needs your help, doesn’t he?”

  Damn! Talk about perfect timing!

  Judging from the slurred, rambling voicemail and incoherent texts, Erik was having a bad night.

  “He sounds like he’s in bad shape,” Talon said.

  “You think he might hurt himself?”

  Talon shrugged. The Erik he’d served with was a force of nature, a man whose will to fight burned with the intensity of a bright star in its prime. This new Erik was a pale shadow of that man.

  “You should go to him,” Michelle said.

  Talon’s face fell and Michelle cupped his rugged features in her hands. “If something should happen to him, you’ll never forgive yourself.”

  Michelle’s selfless words reminded Talon why he loved her so much. He rose reluctantly and sent Erik a quick text to say that he was on his way. He kissed Michelle and it lingered, almost reigniting their passion. Michelle gently pulled away. “Go help your friend.”

  She handed him her car keys. “I’m parked about five cars down the block. I’ll be here waiting for you when you come back.”

  Talon gave her an earnest look and said, “Love you.”

  Her smile always knocked his socks off. “I love you too.”

  Once outside, his eyes probed the dark road and spotted Michelle’s car — a red Nissan. The keys jingled in his hand as he walked down the abandoned sidewalk.

  Talon got into the Nissan and slid into traffic. He never noticed the black van with tinted windows, parked across the street from Michelle’s place. He was gone by the time its hoodie-wearing occupants got out and approached his fiancee’s home.

  Chapter Three

  Erik appeared in the entrance of his rundown Oakland home and a wave of body odor hit Talon’s nostrils. His former commanding officer was a disheveled, stinking mess. Long hair clung to his scalp in greasy clumps and a sagging belly pressed against a belt that had run out of notches.

  Talon entered the house and struggled to hide his shock. Erik’s abode mirrored the sorry state of its broken owner. Fat cockroaches scrabbled among a wasteland of pizza boxes and empty beer bottles.

  “Looking good, old friend,” Erik slurred.

  “The bad guys are keeping me in fighting shape.”

  Erik grinned at that. “Let me get you a beer.”

  As Erik headed for his fridge, Talon once again took in the squalor of his surroundings. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

  Erik returned with a bottle of Bud and said, “Fuck you too, man.” They toasted and took deep swigs from their beers.

  “Man, thanks for coming over. I nodded off and I was back on that fucking mountain…” Erik’s voice trailed off. A part of him had never left Afghanistan.

  Talon had tried to get through to his former comrade-in-arms on numerous occasions, with little success. His only option left was to be there for Erik during his darkest moments, hoping the man would ultimately find the strength to break free of this terrible downward spiral. For the next two hours, Talon listened to Erik talk about the old days. Good and bad memories competed in his old friend’s mind. It was good to reminisce with someone who’d been there.

  Eventually, Erik’s probing gaze locked on Talon. “So what’s going on between you and that reporter broad? Hope you know the girl is crazy about you.”

  “The feeling is mutual.”

  “So what are you waiting for? A girl like Michelle comes around once in a lifetime. You don’t want to let her get away. Step up to the plate and make an honest woman out of her.”

  “I just did, a few hours before you called.”

  “Oh shit, no way. Oh man, I’m so sorry. Fuck, the day you propose you end up spending the evening with a loser like me.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m proud of you, kid. You two will be great together.”

  I think so too, Talon thought.

  “So what happens next? Might be tougher risking your ass every day knowing there’s someone back home waiting for you. A whole family, maybe…”

  Talon was impressed by how Erik had redirected the focus from himself. No wonder the man had once earned a reputation as a master interrogator.

  “I think it’s time for a change.” Talon’s voice grew dead serious. Erik understood.

  “You thinking of leaving the unit?”

  “The thought has crossed my mind. I don’t want to turn Michelle into just another military wife.”

  Talon sensed this would be the most challenging part of settling down. He loved what he did and took pride in the function his unit served. But he was getting older. Turning his back on the military life would be hard, but he would find a way to serve his country in another capacity. Perhaps he would apply for a job at the CIA or do some teaching.

  Despite all his training and lethal skill, Talon harbored no illusions about his mortality. As a soldier at the tip of the spear, the specter of death was his constant companion. Talon had found a way to live with it but he doubted if Michelle could, especially if they decided to start a family.

  Erik polished off his beer. “I won’t sleep as soundly knowing you’re not out there keeping the country safe. But it’ll be nice having you around.”

  Talon hoped that once he settled down in San Francisco, he might become a positive influence on Erik. Would their friendship be enough to conquer the damaged vet’s demons? Only time would tell.

  Talon finished his beer and checked his watch. It was now past ten. “Alright, I should get going.”

  Talon walked to the door and paused. “You’ll be good, right? You’re not going to do anything stupid?”

  “If your idea of stupid is ordering a pizza from Joey’s and knocking it back with a couple shots of bourbon, then the answer is yes.”

  The bravado in Erik’s voice made Talon want to believe him. ”I expect you to be the best man at my wedding.”

  “Sounds like I d
on’t have long to get my shit together. I think that calls for one more round.”

  He grinned at Talon and cracked open another beer.

  Michelle Rossi basked in the happy afterglow of her passionate reunion with Mark Talon and the promise of their shared future. Letting him leave her apartment had not been easy, but she knew his friend needed him. She’d seen Erik a few times since being embedded with the unit and it was clear that the man’s psychological scars were far worse than his physical ones. The battlefield could take a heavy toll on the minds and bodies of the brave men and women serving their country.

  No one remained unscathed by the experience, not even Mark, but he had found a way to channel every negative thought in a constructive direction and make it work to his advantage. When they first started dating, she wondered what differentiated Mark from other soldiers who succumbed to the stress of their dangerous profession. She’d interviewed many veterans who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and feared Mark could be next in line.

  One key element separated Mark from those other warriors. Instead of dwelling on the horrors of combat, he allowed them to fuel the urgency of his mission. Mark never forgot the greater purpose behind the mayhem. Freedom and civilization weren’t given to us; they were hard earned over the course of centuries dominated by cruelty and injustice. The battles might be terrible, but the war was worth winning.

  Michelle yawned and her eyes grew heavy. It had been a long day. She decided to brew a pot of coffee so she would be awake when Mark returned.

  As the stimulating scent of Java beans filled her apartment, her mind turned to the enigmatic man who had so unexpectedly popped back into her life. She was still reeling from the surprising turn her day had taken. When they first met she’d welcomed the idea of a long-distance relationship. She was fiercely independent and didn’t want to be beholden to the demands of a full-blown relationship. But each time she saw Mark, it became harder to say goodbye. She was surprised to discover that she wanted him to be part of her life. Not in a let’s-see-each-other-when–we-can way, but full-time.

  She eyed her engagement ring and stifled a delighted giggle. Her wish was on its way to becoming reality. Did Mark plan to resign from his military duties? The proposal suggested the possibility and the idea of having him around all the time made her grin with happiness.

  Her thoughts shifted from Mark to the story she was tackling at the moment. She hadn’t offered up any details when Mark asked her about it, but if her source was telling the truth, this piece could rattle Silicon Valley and the entire Bay Area. She needed to proceed with caution.

  Michelle was about to take a seat with her laptop when she heard the knock on her door. Could it be Mark? She ruled out that possibility — he had both her car and house keys. Gripped by foreboding, she paused near the door.

  “Who is it?”

  No answer.

  Michelle backed away from the door. She’d found herself in some shady places over the course of her journalistic career and didn’t scare easily. Nevertheless, the growing sense that someone threatening lurked behind the door filled her with dread.

  Fighting back her fear, she made a go for the couch, where she kept her purse. It contained a can of pepper spray. She was still rummaging in the handbag when a heavy blow rattled the front door. Two more cracks followed in quick succession and after the third sharp crack, the lock snapped.

  As the destroyed door swung open, four intruders stood revealed. They all wore baggy black hoodies, their features cloaked in shadow. One carried the kind of battering ram used by police officers.

  Michelle’s panicked fingers closed around her pepper spray just as the home invaders swarmed her living room. The intruders wore silver-gray robotic skull-masks under their hoods, and this inhuman presence froze Michelle for a moment. By the time she depressed the nozzle, a gloved hand was already headed for her face. The canister hissed as the intruder’s fist connected.

  Both Michelle and the pepper spray went flying. Stunned, she tried to regain her bearings. Too late! One of the attackers grabbed her hair.

  Many people would have gone rigid with fear at this point, dazed and outnumbered. But Michelle was well versed in martial arts from jujitsu to Krav Maga. Mark had taught her a few tricks, too. Her work took her to some dangerous places and she had to be able to handle herself.

  Without hesitation, her elbow fired back and hammered her assailant’s collarbone. He let out a cry that was muffled by his robotic mask and backed away.

  Michelle spun around and surveyed the living room. Keeping her cool, she searched her environment for everyday objects that could serve as a makeshift weapon. She snatched up the steaming coffee mug from the end table and thrust it into her second attacker’s face. The man cursed as the cup exploded in a burst of scalding caffeine and fragmented porcelain.

  Suddenly the monstrous quartet before her seemed a little less intimidating. Masks served one function in battle — to instill fear in the enemy. Underneath the armor were flesh-and-blood people who could be hurt. Or killed. Confidence growing, Michelle turned toward her third attacker but this man was prepared. In his gloved hand he held out a Taser.

  No!

  Compressed nitrogen projected twin probes at 180 feet per second. The projectiles instantly made contact and her body went slack, 50,000 volts overriding her nervous system. As her muscles contracted involuntarily, she hit the floor in a fetal position.

  The cold irony was that Michelle now gasped, paralyzed, in the same spot where minutes earlier she’d shared a lover’s embrace with Mark.

  The intruders gathered around her twitching body, forming a ring of hooded evil. One of the masked men pointed his cellphone camera at Michelle, recording her suffering.

  Fucking bastard…

  Her will to fight was still there, but her limbs refused to obey her commands. Recognizing her own helpless state, mortal fear set in.

  Noooo… Not now. Not like this.

  While one masked man recorded Michelle’s suffering, the other three produced knives from the pockets of their baggy hoodies. The four figures began to utter foreign words that filled Michelle with atavistic terror.

  Oh my God, what’s happening here?

  At around six-foot-four and the size of a middle linebacker, one man towered over the others. He appeared to be the leader of the group. He sank to his haunches beside Michelle’s paralyzed form and produced a canister of spray-paint. There was an explosive hiss as he began to draw an inverted star around her prone form. The paint’s nauseating fumes assaulted her nostrils and nearly made her gag.

  This can’t be happening… Someone, please, help me…

  Only one man could stop these monsters, and he wasn’t at her side when she needed him the most.

  The third assailant placed candles at the points of the floor pentagram and Michelle’s dread deepened. The large man leaned over her and whispered in her ear, his voice bereft of all emotion. “I pledge your soul to my master.”

  With these chilling words, he drove a knife into Michelle’s sternum until only the hilt protruded. There had been no hesitation, no dramatic pause, just a robotic precision. Her still-paralyzed body jerked as the blade eased through skin, muscle and bone. The notion that six inches of steel could so easily vanish inside her body seemed surreal, a nightmare beyond her imagining. It couldn’t be true… but it was.

  To her surprise, she experienced no pain at first. Adrenaline actually masked the damage. Then the big man withdrew his knife and blood streamed from the terrible wound. The first waves of agony washed over her.

  Michelle understood that any help would come too late. At the rate she was losing blood, she’d be dead in minutes. In various war zones she’d seen enough people perish, both military and civilians, to know that her fate was sealed.

  Mark’s face filled her mind as adrenaline surged through her body and her pulse quickened, the increase in blood pressure only hastening her demise.

  Her dear Mark. S
he knew her death would devastate him and for a moment she was more concerned about the man she loved than her own safety.

  But the horror was far from over.

  It was merely beginning.

  Like a school of piranhas descending on live prey, the other knife-wielding monsters plunged their daggers into Michelle with psychotic fury.

  In and out, again and again.

  Michelle exhaled blood and let out a guttural cry that seemed to intensify her killer’s frenzy. The indifferent electronic eyes of their cellphone-cams continued to capture every detail of the bloodbath.

  Robert Zagan, CEO of Omicron Technologies, entered a sleek, 300-seat auditorium. It was a cavernous chamber appointed in warm woods and brushed steel. Zagan headed for the stage. The company normally used the assembly room to make announcements or even hold press conferences, but today’s secret gathering served a far darker agenda.

  About eighty seats were filled at the moment. Zagan’s audience consisted exclusively of computer engineers, the best and brightest this Silicon Valley tech upstart had produced in the last two years. Their open laptops glowed in the dimly lit chamber like electronic fireflies, the sickly phosphorescent light of their LCD screens bathing their faces in an eerie spectral green. With their hoodies, the programmers seemed like cyber monks tapping away at the secrets of a digital universe. It was an apt analogy, considering what they were working on.

  Zagan stepped up to the podium and faced the assembled computer-engineering talent before him. Unlike the coders who favored jeans, Converse and flannel, Zagan was clad in a stylish black suit. His sleek, ascetic features were complemented by a lean, almost gaunt physique — the product of a strict vegan diet and rigid exercise regimen. He’d prematurely gone bald in his mid-twenties and began shaving his head. This only added to his severe presence.