Pure Hate (25 page)

Reed was dreaming again. He was still
walking, following in the direction of the sirens, but his mind had flown free
of his exhausted body. Linda was cooking for him again. He could smell mushroom
and zucchini casserole with too much garlic and cayenne pepper baking in the
oven, filling the entire house with a heavy exotic musk. He was hungry, but he
couldn’t get Crissy out of his mind. They had a date, and he knew she was
waiting for him. He told Linda he was going for a walk and he walked around the
corner to meet the babysitter in her daddy’s car. Minutes later, Crissy’s
father caught his little girl lifting her head from Reed’s lap with his cum
dribbling off her chin.

Linda was crushed, but she stuck by
him. He could see her tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks, see the pain and
anger in her eyes wrestling with her determination to hold her family together.
He’d felt like shit, helpless, useless, unworthy of her, the same way he felt
the night she died.

Reed stopped walking. He stared up
the block where several patrol vehicles were gathered then he looked down the
street. A hundred yards or so from where he was standing, something moved. He
saw something slip across the street, illuminated for a second by the street
light overhead . . . something large and black. A piece of the night had
separated itself from the rest of the darkness and slid across the street to
rejoin the night again. Reed recognized the way it moved. It was familiar,
anthropomorphic. It was Malcolm.

Reed felt his feet moving before he
consciously decided to run after the darkness. He saw a silhouette dashing
across the dark. It slipped over a fence, moving fast. He followed. He pulled
out the Glock and pointed it into the solid wall of night, looking for the
human shape he’d glimpsed there. Reed could hear the sound of heavy footprints
thudding across dirt. He followed blindly, slowing down so he wouldn’t overtake
his prey in the dark.

He heard the sound of cloth flapping
around brisk moving limbs, the sound of a lock popping open, the sound of a car
door slamming. Malcolm had found wheels. Reed leapt another fence and found himself
huffing, wheezing, out of breath, and standing next to a state liquor store
back on Germantown Avenue.

There were six cars parked on the
street at that hour. A red Chevy Nova with a white racing stripe, a green
Hyundai Sonata, a candy-apple red Toyota Tercel, a white Ford F150 with a dent
in the door, a ten-year old white BMW with dented fenders, and a black,
drop-top, Mercedes coupe. Reed aimed his gun at the coupe, but it was already
pulling away from the curb. He couldn’t see the passenger, but he knew. The
Mercedes was just Malcolm’s taste.

Reed had no idea how to steal a car.
He hailed a cab. The cab driver slowed down and looked at Reed, appraising him.
He looked wild but he was white. White people never looked dangerous to people
in G-town unless they were wearing uniforms. Reed knew nothing about the cab
driver. He didn’t know the man was a recently legalized immigrant from Haiti
who had a wife, three kids, a young sister, and a mother that he supported back
home or that he was trying to raise the money to bring them to America with
him. When Reed opened the car door, pointed the gun at the bridge of the
driver’s nose, and told him to get out, all he knew about the man was that he
would never see another day if he didn’t do exactly as Reed told him. The
driver did not hesitate a moment and gave up the cab without resistance. No job
was worth never seeing his family again.

The Mercedes cruised up Germantown
Avenue at exactly five miles over the twenty-five mile-per-hour speed limit.
Not too slow or too fast, nothing to raise suspicion. The top was up, the
windows were tinted and not even the driver’s outline was visible. Reed
followed the Mercedes down Germantown Avenue, through the Richard Allen
projects where angry kids threw empty bottles atthe taxi but not at
Malcolm’s black Mercedes as if they knew. He followed Eleventh Street downtown
into Center City. Reed had been following Malcolm for over half an hour when he
recognized where they were going. He should have known.

Malcolm pulled up outside of the
police station and parked the car. He was tired but anger made him sharp. He
knew Natasha had gotten away. How else had the cops known he was headed for the
detective’s house? They had gotten close this time. It enraged Malcolm to think
of himself gunned down on the detective’s front lawn with Reed and Natasha
still alive, free to fuck each other all over again, to cum on his grave.
Malcolm gnashed his teeth and punched his fist into the dash, sending little
chips of high impact plastic flying back at his face. He didn’t even blink as
they struck his cheek. His eyes were glazed, staring deep into the night,
trying to see through the walls of the police station. He wanted Natasha back.
She belonged to him, not to the cops, not to Reed. She would always be his. She
would die for him.

Malcolm knew he’d never get his time
alone with Reed until he rid himself of the fleas that were tracking him, drawn
to his heat. He knew that killing the cop had been a mistake, but now that he’d
done it there was no choice but to kill more. He’d kill them all if necessary,
if that’s what it took get them to back off. He’d drive a stake of fear through
the police department’s heart, reacquaint them with their own mortality,
paralyze them. That would give him the time he needed to finally bring full
closure to his relationship with Reed. And he still needed to reclaim Natasha,
which meant going through her protectors, killing more cops.

Malcolm watched for over an hour, his
focus never wavering, his anger ebbing and then crashing back upon him like
waves upon a jagged shore, never noticing the taxi that idled down the block
and across the street. Finally, two unmarked squad cars pulled up in front of
the station house. A tall, awkwardly built, white cop, along with a foppish Puerto
Rican, hurried out of the station house flanking Natasha. She was still wearing
Rick’s clothes and jacket. Malcolm felt a tug of desire as he watched her
stroll defiantly down the station steps with no outward signs of nervousness
despite the peril she must feel. His sex drive and homicidal instincts had long
become indistinguishable and the thought of drawing her blood heated his own.
This would not be a cold, merciful execution. He had waited too long for that.
Malcolm needed time with her, time to enjoy her again.

The three ducked into the back of an
unmarked Ford LTD and headed up Eleventh Street, followed by a second car,
which no doubt held additional security. Malcolm waited a few seconds to give
them some distance. He swung the Mercedes into a tight U-turn and began to
follow them, never noticing the taxi making a U-turn in his rear view mirror,
nearly running down a pedestrian hurrying across the street to flag it down for
a ride.

The procession of cars traveled up Eleventh
Street and then turned right on Walnut Street at the Gay and Lesbian bookstore
where a book signing was taking place. A small gay pride parade had formed
outside its door and the police slowed down to let several conservatively
dressed businessmen, perversely attired leathermen, and flamboyantly dressed
transvestites saunter arm in arm across the street. Malcolm slowed to a
complete stop and avoided coming too close to the police vehicles.

He smiled, recalling the day he’d
picked up Paul at that same bookstore. He’d watched Paul flipping through the
pages of a leather and latex fetish magazine, then turn his attention to
another book lower down on the rack, flipping through an illustrated adult
comic book featuring X-rated renderings of Marquis De Sade’s “Philosophy in the
Bedroom” while his modest erection became apparent. He looked so much like
Reed, Malcolm wanted to kill him on the spot.

When Paul spotted Malcolm staring at
him with homicidal lust sizzling in his retinas, he recognized it instantly. He
was drawn to it. He could see the want in Malcolm’s eyes. Malcolm made sure
that his intentions were clear in his expression, his need, his lust, his love,
as only the starving wolf can love the wounded deer, an obsessive adoration, a
relentless hunger. Paul needed to be needed; to be consumed in the intensity of
another human’s passion. It had been destiny. Paul was born to be Malcolm’s
victim. They both knew it with the certainty of faith at the instant their eyes
met. They lived together for months with the promise of torture and death
hanging between them like an unconsummated marriage. Even as Malcolm began
slicing into him, he’d seen nothing but ecstasy on Paul’s face. Pain, fear,
yes, but greater than those had been an almost religious rapture. He had been the
perfect sacrifice. After him, Malcolm knew it was finally time to kill Reed.

The parade moved on and the cops
continued down Walnut Street all the way to Front Street, where the car pulled
into the parking lot of a huge apartment complex. The safe house. Malcolm
parked his car across the street and smiled in the dark. His platinum fangs
shined even through the tinted windows.

The second unmarked police car circled the block
before driving off. It paused for a second in front of each car parked on the
block in front of the safe house, and the officers recorded license plates.
Malcolm held the shotgun between his legs and slid lower into the seat as the
detectives pulled up alongside the black Mercedes. They wrote down the license
plate and continued down the block. As soon as they ran the plate, Malcolm knew
they’d be back. A car this expensive had surely been reported stolen almost
immediately.

Malcolm watched as the cops continued down the block.
After they turned the corner, Malcolm waited another ten minutes to be sure
they weren’t circling the block again before he left the Mercedes. The shotgun
was still cocked as it hung down in the long pocket of his trench coat. Malcolm
quickened his steps, crossing the street into the building. He walked over to
the apartment’s entrance and cursed aloud when he saw the doorman. The man had
surely been alerted to call the cops if he spotted a six-foot-five, 230-pound,
black man with platinum fangs creeping around, and just killing the man would
bring the cops too quickly. He might even be a planted cop bodyguard.

A young yuppie chick with flaming red hair
piloted a black Chrysler 300 into the parking lot and drove around the back of
the building. Malcolm followed her. If she wasn’t parking in the lot then there
must be a garage, a garage with its own entrance to the building. Malcolm
avoided the front of the building and the doorman’s vigilant gaze, sticking to
the shadows as he slid through the parking lot and ducked around the corner in
time to see a gate starting to lower on an underground parking garage. Picking
up his pace, he ducked under the gate before it closed completely.

Malcolm spotted the redhead stepping out of the
Chrysler, slinging a black Prada bag over her shoulder. She wore a red leather
jacket and a tight black miniskirt with black leggings. She looked like a high-priced
call girl only a year or two of hard tricks away from walking the street.
Malcolm followed her to the elevator door.

She pushed the button for the elevator and
Malcolm thought about following her up, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to
control the urge to kill her. She was attractive and it had been awhile.
Malcolm took the stairs.

Walter Essex was the security guard on duty that
night. He’d been a real estate broker in better years, and a thief in worse.
He’d lost a wife to alcoholism and chronic drug abuse and two daughters to an
abusive and irresponsible nature. The kids were both grown and gone now, in
therapy, and in denial of their father’s existence. His wife, their mother,
acquired some of his vices over the years and, last Thanksgiving, she ODed on
heroin while in the kitchen. The turkey burned and so did the house. The urn
over the mantle at his daughter’s house probably held more ashes from their old
house than it did her mother’s. The girl blamed him for that, too.

Walter didn’t expect much out of
life. He had learned to pray for the best but prepare for the worse. Still, he
was unprepared for the grinning black demon that roared out of the fire exit.
It never occurred to him to reach for his gun. At least, not until he saw it in
Malcolm’s hands, pointed at his chin. He hadn’t cleaned his gun in months, but
it was loaded. He was sure of that, and the bullets, however old, were still
fresh enough to kill him.

“Oh, shit.” He croaked. He was sure that this man
would take his life. He didn’t value it enough to beg for it.

“You can save yourself some pain if you tell me
where those cops went with the girl,” Malcolm whispered, in a voice like wind
whistling through a graveyard.

Walter didn’t believe that this man would spare
his life even if he did tell him what he wanted to know. There was something in
those eyes—hardness, a coldness, that looked inhumane, the way a fisherman
looked at the fish before he gutted and filleted it, but Walter told him
anyway. It was worth a try.

“Top floor. Room 1016.”

Walter hated cops. He didn’t feel any
regret imagining what the huge, ferocious-looking black man would do to them.
His only regret when he saw the blade come out from under Malcolm’s jacket, was
never having apologized to his daughters. And, finally, deep in his heart, he
accepted that their mother’s death truly was his fault.

“I’m sorry, Bethany,” he whispered as
Malcolm savagely bared knife and fangs.

When the knife slammed into his belly
and began slicing upward, Walter tried not to scream. He tried to grab the
man’s wrists, and he tried to prevent the knife from rising, but the man was
impossibly strong, and all Walter could do was try to slow him down a little.
Blood rained from the ever widening wound in his gut from beneath his naval to
just below his saggy man-boobs. The man withdrew the knife and turned to walk
away as ropes of bluish purple intestines erupted from the enormous gash in
Walter’s belly.

The old security guard struggled to
push his guts back inside his belly. The pain was overwhelming, sickening; his
stomach roiled even as it flopped out of his body, and Walter vomited into the
growing pool of bloody intestine at his feet, which in turn sent a new wave of
pain through his bowels. He collapsed amid the blood and vomit, convulsing from
pain and blood-loss with the onset of terminal shock. He had forgotten the
struggle to hold back his screams and agonized cries now filled the entire
lobby as Walter’s killer disappeared into the stairwell.

Malcolm took his time walking up the
stairs. The detectives wouldn’t be as easy as the security guard had been. They
would be cautious and on guard after the death of their peer. Malcolm had to be
careful. He had to be smarter than they were. He knew that someone would be
outside watching the hall. He had to take him out quietly. Malcolm still had
the knife, now dripping wet with the security guard’s blood. If one of the cops
was outside in the hall, Malcolm would try to catch him by surprise with the
knife and take him out silently before he could squeeze off a shot. Cops put
too much faith in the ten-foot rule. Malcolm knew that he could close twenty
feet and slice the detective open before he could even free his weapon from its
holster. Acting was a lot quicker than reacting, and Malcolm would have
surprise on his side. If both cops were inside the apartment, things might get
a little more complicated.

Malcolm made it to the top floor and
stared out the fire exit’s thick glass window at the long empty hall. There was
no detective in the hallway, not even a bored, half-conscious uniform. No one
to ambush, no one to force to open the door, to hold hostage and make the other
cop give up his gun, to use as a human shield as he charged into the apartment
blasting. Malcolm could see room 1016 halfway down the hall, only one hundred feet
away. It would be a pointless trip. Going through that door would be suicide.
He looked around the stairwell and spotted a window that led to a rusting fire
escape.

Malcolm slid through the window onto
the rickety steel framework. The winds were thirty miles per hour and Malcolm
had to hang on as the entire structure rattled and shook. Malcolm climbed from
the fire escape onto a thick ledge that wrapped around the building. The wind
threatened to tear him from the ledge as he crept from window to window. He
counted the distance from the fire escape to where he’d seen the apartment as
he passed one dark window after another, slipping unnoticed past entangled or
embattled lovers. He stopped just outside the apartment where Natasha was
supposedly safe. The shade was pulled but the lights were on and he could hear
voices. He could also hear the unmistakable squawk of a police radio. This had
to be the right place.

Malcolm slid the sawed-off Mossberg
out of his coat pocket and aimed it at the window. He waited until he saw a
large male silhouette fall across the shade before he pulled the trigger.