Chapter 36
“I…,” he started to say, but the words seemed too thick to move past his throat. He took a minute and then started again. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
He moved in to offer her his hand, trying to help her out from behind the dumpster, but she jumped to her feet in a spastic, frightened jerk and ran past him.
Darius let her go, listening as the sounds of her running footsteps quickly faded. He sank to his knees in the alley where he’d found her and put his face in his hands. His despair at realizing that his mind tricked him into thinking Anna was alive was too much for him to bear. He felt like a weight was on his mind that continually pressed down on him. The despair was unbearable and all it did was fuel his anger-filled depression. It was like a claw digging through his mind that destroyed everything he was or had been.
He got up and glanced at the two men he’d killed. He figured the girl probably caught their eye as an easy mark and one or both of them decided to either rob her, rape her, or both. The world was better off without them, he told himself, disgusted that such men even existed. The world didn’t need filth like that clogging it up.
He turned from them and stalked away, a sense of purpose rising from the ashes of the life he’d destroyed. The same sense of purpose he’d attained from killing Richard Williams and the disgusting cop. It now whirled inside him, filling the empty places in his soul that had been ripped from him the instant Anna died.
It felt good. Really good, actually, and it seemed like the only thing that did anymore.
He walked away from the alley, not even glancing back. Distantly, he heard the sound of sirens, their loud, warbling cries drawing closer. He supposed the security guard finally managed to call the cops. He wasn’t worried about them, however. Even if they did manage to find him and try to put him in cuffs, Darius knew there was nothing they could do to stop him. No one could stop him. The only who would even have half a chance was Alex and he was fairly sure he wouldn’t come after him.
He continued walking, his mind adrift. It ran down roads of thoughts, each one twining and merging with the other. The sounds and sights around him never filtered in and the people that bustled past seemed to instinctively give him a wide berth. He caught one or two quick glances, but whenever he turned to meet the eyes of the person looking at him, they would turn away in nervous fear. Mostly, however, he ignored them. He ignored everything and just kept walking toward some unknown destination.
Eventually, he came to a lone ATM built into the side of a skyscraper. He paused there and grabbed his debit card out of his wallet, shoving it into the card reader. He punched his pin number in and withdrew as much money out of his checking account as he could. All told, he walked away with $1,000. He tossed his bank card into the trash after that, deciding he wasn’t going to need it anymore, and walked on. He kept that up for a long time, the scenery and energy of the city around him changing gradually from tolerable neighborhoods and sections to the seedier slums.
Before he reached the city’s worst neighborhoods, a store caught his attention. It was a rundown, tiny pawn shop with heavy metal security bars set up to discourage burglars. They were painted a uniform black and covered every glass surface on the front of the store, even the glass door that led inside. The windows were greasy and stained with dirt and grime, making it hard to see inside. A forlorn looking neon sign proclaimed that the store was open, the "N’ in the word had gone out.
The store itself wasn’t what drew his attention. What drew his attention was a long, slender sword displayed in one of the grimy window displays. It rested on a special stand, outfitted so that it could sit comfortably on two black wooden arms. A black scabbard of the same lacquered quality as the stand was positioned beneath the blade and it threw back the reddish glow of the sign’s neon light. The blade was eerily beautiful and he had trouble taking his eyes off it. The sword’s blade was a couple of inches longer than his arm, ending in the classic chisel-point of a Japanese katana. The guard was brass with an oriental dragon sinuously coiled about itself and worked into its design.
As he stood there looking at it, the dragon seemed to move and writhe, twisting itself up to look at him. He shook his head to clear it and when he looked again, the dragon rested in its usual position. The handle was long, but comfortable looking. Black strips of crisscrossing cloth covered it, leaving diamond shaped patterns the color of deep crimson showing. An alternating pattern of black and red cord wrapped the end of the scabbard.
As he continued looking at it, he felt its cold, ancient power speak to him and he knew then he had to have it.
He managed to force himself to look away long enough to push through the store’s grimy door and make his way through the clutter inside up to the front. Junk filled most of the shelves around him and guns filled what was left. There were also a few knives, cheap daggers, and bits of jewelry underneath a glass case at the front. Mostly, however, there was junk and guns. His katana, and he was absolutely sure that the sword would be his, was the only thing that looked of any actual value in the pawn shop.
As he got closer to the front of the store, and the glass counter, he saw a rusted cash register sitting on top of it. The thing looked like it came from roughly the same era as when they had first been invented, maybe a step or two up from the original version. An elderly man sat on a worn stool behind the case, his head tilted down to where his chin rested on his chest. His eyes were closed and he was snoring loudly.
Darius came up to the counter and banged a fist against it, careful not to break it. The old man abruptly snorted as his head snapped up. He sought out the source of the noise and his bleary eyes finally settled on Darius. His hand shot up, lightning quick, a pistol gripped in it. Darius admired the old man’s speed. For a guy his age that was really impressive. If he were normal, that probably would have been enough to actually scare him.
Shrewd, absolutely lucid, gray eyes stared hard at Darius. The old man knew dangerous when he saw it and the guy in front of him practically had it oozing off his skin. He kept his mouth shut, giving the young man in front of him plenty of time to speak his mind. If he didn’t like what he heard he’d tell him to leave or find himself lying on the floor with a hole through his kneecap.
Darius eyed the old man. He was a small, wiry old codger with leathery skin that had wrinkles on top of wrinkles. His skin was red through his cheeks and across his bald, liver spotted scalp. What hair he had left surrounded the sides and back of his head in a light coating as white as snow. His back was hunched painfully but his gnarled old hands were still nimble and quick. He noticed that the old man wasn’t even trembling. That really clued him in to the fact that the guy had used guns before and had no problem with the idea of using one again.
“What do you want?” the old man asked, his voice gruff. The words came out in a rapid burst as his eyes traveled down to his gun and then back up to Darius’s eyes. “I don’t want to shoot you, kid, but you better believe I will.”
“Relax,” Darius said, his voice sharp and commanding. He sneered down at the gun before ignoring its presence completely. To him, the meaningless little machine was no more dangerous than a cockroach. “I ain’t here to rob you, old man. I want the sword. I don’t care how much it is.”
“Too bad,” the old man snapped back, bristling with anger. “It’s not for sale, so get outta my store.”
“I want the sword,” Darius repeated, his voice and body language suggesting he wasn’t leaving without it.
“Not. For. Sale,” the old man repeated, saying each word separately and harshly, as if he were talking to someone who didn’t have the mental capacity to understand simple speech. “It’s just something I stuck out there for display. Lure customers in and what not.”
“How much?” Darius asked once again, relentless.
He saw the old man about to turn him down once again and his anger surged forward, asserting itself in his brain and taking control. He reached forward and snatched the gun out of the old man’s hand with amazing speed. The old man saw him lunge for it, amazed at his speed, and let it go without any resistance. Another one seemed to magically jump into his hand a second later. Darius merely looked at him, impressed.
The old man fully intended to shoot the kid before the kid shot him. However, he stopped with shock as he realized that’s not what the kid intended to do at all.