Agon (18 page)

Moving into the house, he stood
stunned at the damage that had been done to his home. Files had
been torn open and papers were all over the place in his office.
The carpet had been cut to shreds, and the chair he’d killed Jane
in was cut up as well. Blood samples, he supposed.

Pictures, huge works of art that he’d
paid a good deal of money for, were stacked in a long row down the
hall like they were ready to be moved. Each of them had been
wrapped in a dark sheet and had numbers written on them.

They were going to steal his art,
Jerry just knew it. This was almost too much. The destruction and
the theft of his things had him wanting to go out into the yard
again and kill both men there. But right now he didn’t have time to
worry about them taking something from him that were just
things…things that he had no doubt he’d be able to procure again
soon. Jerry wanted to get in and get out.

Going up to his bedroom, he stopped
again. Here the damage was outrageous.

They’d found his stash, he noticed
first. That devastated him more than anything. He’d been collecting
those pictures all his life. Very few of them he’d taken himself,
but had only bought them when one or more of them appealed to him.
The boys were all dead and buried, and Jerry wondered if they might
be found someday. He planned to be long gone before that happened.
But they were his photographs nonetheless.

Going to his closet, he nearly wept.
Here the animals had taken all his suits and clothing and torn them
from hangers and tossed them into piles. Even his shoes had been
tossed away, and the handcrafted shelving he’d had made for them
all was hacked at by what he could only surmise was an
ax.

He was standing next to his bathroom
when he realized how long it had been since he’d had a proper
cleaning. Jerry knew that he was being really vain, but the thought
of his own shower spraying on him had him stripping off his
clothing quickly and stepping into the mammoth opening. It was like
heaven.

He scrubbed himself twice before he
felt better. His ass was sore, of course, but he was cleaned of the
cum there as well. Smiling, he fisted his cock long enough for him
to come and give him a good laugh. Then he got out and dried off.
He was stepping into a fresh pair of pants when something occurred
to him.

“
They’ll know I was here.”
Laughing again, he pulled two of his shirts out of the mess and put
one of them on. The other, along with a few pair of socks and
underwear, he put into a small suitcase. He was putting some other
things into it when he picked up his shaving cream and thought of
Judith. Going to the bathroom again, he left her a nice message.
Then he picked up his bag and made his way to the sublevels. Time
to get what he’d come for. He just hoped that it was still
there.

There was an enormous hole in the
floor, and he could see that they’d found his safe. Jerry didn’t
know what to do for several minutes as he tried to think where he
could get some more money. There had been over seventy million
dollars in that safe, along with several million in loose gems and
diamonds. The rest had been passports and other things he’d need to
run. Now it was all gone. He was glad now he’d scooped up his
collection of watches that they’d not found as yet when he’d been
in his bedroom. That would bring him a few bucks.

But all and all, he was thinking of
all the ways that Judith was going to repay him when he finally got
her. And he would, too. It wasn’t just a thought now. It was a
fucking need. He didn’t really blame her for what he’d done. No,
Jerry knew that he was responsible for his own actions. What he did
blame her for was them finding all his things and now for
destroying them.

“
Fucking bitch.” He was
thinking of the several thousand ways he was going to extract all
he could from her as he stood there staring at the enormous hole.
She’d been a thorn in his side for years, and now…well, now she’d
pushed him too far. It was time to take her out. No more keeping
her for her abilities, but he was simply going to kill her. A noise
from above him told him it was past time to get the hell out, and
he snuck back up the stairs and out his hole. Jerry was making his
way to the pool house when he saw her.

Judith looked for all the world like a
normal person…long hair that reminded him of her mother, and a body
that most men, stupid men, would find mouthwatering. He could only
see her for what she was…a monster with tits.

“
And one that is well past
due paying for her crimes and what she’s done to me.” He made a
quick stop in the pool house and realized it was going to be as
fruitless as the rest of the trip had been, because apparently
she’d guided them to the safe out there as well.

Jerry moved from the house to the
wooded area behind it, his anger so hot that he wanted to scream
with it. He was trying to figure out what to do when he realized
that he should have charged his phone. Looking at it now, there was
less than five percent on it. Not even enough to call someone. He
had to sit down and make a list of what needed to be done right
now. He found a tree to hide behind, pulled out his little tablet
that he’d found, and started to make notes on it.

“
A bit of food would be
nice.” Another thing he should have gotten while in his own home.
“A place to charge up my phone so I can make some calls. Selling
the watches will give me more time.” Jerry laughed at his own joke.
“Time and watches. I’m so hysterical.”

He’d always had a shitty memory and
now that he’d been using this tablet thing for a few months, it had
only gotten worse. Jerry was typing in some of the other things
he’d need, and was trying to remember everything but hoping to at
least get the most important done. When the battery on it died as
well, Jerry started repeating the most important things he needed
immediately to try and remember them.

“
Food, phone, buyer. Food,
phone, buyer. Food, phone, buyer.” He was walking along the street
when he added two more things to his list. “Food, phone, buyer,
transportation, and gun. Food, phone, buyer, transportation, and
gun.”

He realized he was drawing attention
to himself and stopped speaking aloud. Nearly exhausted from his
morning already, he stopped in a coffee shop to get something to
hold him over. As soon as he sat down, he read the little paper
tent that was sitting on the table. Charging station, it said.
Sitting down with a mug of what turned out to be hot sea dredgings,
he sipped his coffee while he waited for his phone to charge enough
to at least turn it on. And when the couple next to him left, he
got up to get the paper they’d left behind to see if maybe he was
no longer the headliner. No such luck.

Jerry nearly leapt to his feet when he
saw his picture on the front page. Pulling it tighter to his body,
he looked around the smallish restaurant to see if anyone had
recognized him. But they were too buried in their cell phones and
coffee to pay him any mind. The headline touted him as being a
murderer.

It took him nearly an hour to read the
article. It might have taken him less time had he not closed it up
several times simply because he refused to read the dribble that
they’d said about him. But each time it was as if he’d had some
sort of freakish inability to not finish it and was more pissed off
at Judith than before. After his phone signaled it was charged to
fifty percent, he left the restaurant in order to find a more
suitable place for him to call his broker. It was too dangerous now
to be out where he could be seen.

“
I have some things I’d
like to hock.” Johnny said nothing after he had identified himself.
“Just some watches I’m tired of and a few coins.”

“
Can’t.” Jerry laughed and
started to tell him what the watches were, but Johnny cut him off.
“I’m not taking them. No matter if they’re all dipped in gold.
You’re too hot for me, and the thought of having your shit in my
store, frankly, gives me the willies.”

“
You’re kidding me.”
Johnny assured him he was not. “I’ve been doing business with you
for years, and now my stuff isn’t good enough? What the hell?
You’ll take it or I’ll never do business with you
again.”

“
Yeah, that don’t bother
me so much since every newspaper in the world has your picture
plastered all over the front pages. I figure you have a few hours
to be a free man, and I don’t want you in my shop when you’re
taken. Christ, man, have you seen what they’re saying about you…?”
Johnny stopped talking for a few seconds. Then he screamed at
Jerry. “Are you calling me on a fucking cell? Are you fucking
insane?”

“
What else would I be
calling you on? You have to know they’re raiding my
house.”

The line went dead, and he tried to
call him back, sure that Johnny had not hung up on him. After a few
tries, he realized that not only had he hung up, he wasn’t taking
his calls either. Jerry had several thousand dollars’ worth of
watches and no way to get them sold.

He was fucked.

Chapter 10

“
The watches were a good
idea.” Judith nodded at the officer, a younger man by the name of
Tony Kohl. “He’s been to three different places and none of them
will help him. Where did you learn to put tracers in something like
that?”

“
I don’t know. It just
came to me that he’d need money. And since we don’t know where he
might take off to next, it seemed a good idea.” She looked at the
monitors and wondered aloud, “Is it possible to see some property?
I don’t want you to get into trouble or anything. But we just
purchased some land and I would like to know…you know, how big it
is. It’s hard to imagine when someone tells you.”

“
Sure. I’m sure Lieutenant
Anderson would do just about anything for you.” She nodded and gave
him the address of the land that Agon had bought. As Tony pulled it
up, Judith looked around the room they were in.

It was a pretty nice, empty room, but
she thought of all the things she could do to it. This was…Agon had
told her that he’d purchased this as a shop for her as well. As an
outlet for her. She was still trying to wrap her head around the
fact that they were married and he was out buying things like he
was planning to live around here. She had no idea what would happen
to them now that they were these Mystics.

“
Wow. You bought this?”
She looked over his shoulder as he brought the house into focus, or
at least the roof of the house. “Did you buy the entire property or
just the house?”

“
All of it.” The house
needed a new roof, she could see. One side of it was peeled away
like someone had used a large vegetable peeler on it. There were
also a few broken windows lower on the house, but she could see
that there was cut glass on the upper floor. “Do you think you can
show me the barn?”

The barn was suddenly there. And to
say it was large would have been like calling Agon tall. The man
was almost seven foot. And this barn…she leaned in closer when he
rolled the view to the rest of the yard. There was a garage that
looked like it had seen better days, as well as two buildings that
looked very new. When he moved back more, she could see the outline
of the trees as they stood like long rows of tiny men dressed in
leaves. She looked up when the officer cleared his
throat.

“
You do know that it’s
like four thousand acres, right? And that…Christ, lady, you’re
going to need a lot of workers to bring this place up to code to
live there.” She nodded. “If the house was in as good a shape as
the barn, I’d say you could move right in, but it’s a
mess.”

“
It just needs someone to
love it again.” She wondered if that would be enough, but didn’t
say anything. In fact, she was slightly overwhelmed again. “The
previous owners were getting a divorce. Did you know
them?”

“
The Mandrels. Not a great
couple of people. I think they inherited the house from his family,
but they didn’t want to do nothing with it and rarely lived there,
I think. She was more into fashion, and he was…well he liked his
things, too. But his were up his nose and not in the closet. The
land right next to it, that’s the property that your uncle owns.
Did you know that?”

She hadn’t. And now that she could see
it from this view, she could see something standing in a field, and
a pool house. After a few more moves, she could see the top of the
house. She asked him when this picture was taken, and he smiled at
her.

“
Don’t know. I would say
early fall from the leaves on all of the trees. Sometimes if you
know something was there, like a car or something he might have
gotten rid of, but is in the picture, you can date them from there.
But I’d say fall. Not too long ago either. Probably a year or
two.”

She had no idea even if her uncle
owned a car, much less when or if he’d ever sold one. She looked
over the images for a little while, then moved back to her farm.
She was making notes about things she wanted to see in person when
an alarm went off. She looked at the officer.

“
He’s stationary for more
than an hour. I set it up to alert me so I’d know to check out if
he left the watches somewhere or he might have sold them. Could be
nothing but…would you mind if I moved you to this computer?” She
told him she was finished, but he opened the laptop for her and
brought up the same screen. She was trying her best to get back
into what she’d been doing, but he was talking on the phone, and
she moved to listen.