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Police and sharks with 'PRESS' pinned to battered hats swarmed the area. Traffic was temporarily re-routed. A State Policeman answered a call from a paramedic.
The cop hitched up his pants over lean hips and uttered a weary, "What's up?"
The paramedic jerked his head at Benny.
"It's the biker in the jeans jacket. He won't let us take the remains."
The state trooper sighed. He nodded and stalked to the boy.
Hunkering down, he touched the kid on the shoulder. The cop leaped away. He stared into wild eyes and bared teeth. His hand instinctively sought his weapon.
Todd jumped between them.
"Officer?" he said, his hands out to show he was unarmed. "Please? Benny just needs a little time."
Looking back at his cousin, Todd grimaced. He shrugged at the man and shook his head, his face wet with tears.
The cop took a deep breath and nodded sharply.
"Kid, we got a potential disaster here. Traffic bottle-necked all the way up through Mountain Top. I'm sorry for him," he muttered, "but he got five. Understand?"
Crouching near Benny, Todd grimaced and nodded. He choked on a lump in his throat. It wasn't so much Carl's death, though he had started to understand why Benny loved the huge bluff man, but for his cousin. Born only days apart, they were closer than brothers.
"Yo, Ben-ee," Todd whispered.
Hunched over the corpse, Benny choked and groaned.
"He ain't dead, man. Go away, please Toddy? He'll be ok, I know he will." Benny's wild, tear stained face glanced up a Todd. "I seen him so blind drunk, he couldn't walk, but he could ride that friggin bike through the woods with his eyes closed, and never hit a tree or nothin." The words broke off, Benny choked on the lump of stone in his throat.
"Today's my birthday, bro. Carl was taking me to Pappy Bob's." Benny shook his head. He smiled faintly, stroking the battered face. "Dude thought he was gonna surprise me with a party, y' know?" He looked up at Todd, who nodded.
"Dude loved to party." Todd softly added, "But only with your mom, yo." Carl might have been a gigolo before he married Anna Waya, but as far as Todd could see there was no better husband after.
The state trooper watched Benny with a heavy heart. That kid was probably one of the biggest problems Luzerne County ever had. But at a time like this, you'd never know it. He looked like any other kid would when they lost a parent. He closed his eyes against the sight and drew in a deep, shaken breath.
The kid sat, stroking the face of the cooling body, and the man listened to the quiet, choked words.
"I love you, Papa Bear. Please don't leave me. I need you dude. You swore you'd always be there for me, man. R-remember? We were in old lady Dubchek's foster home. I was six, and the Owl spooked me so bad I peed the bed . . . and when she wanted to beat me, you told her off. Said it was all her fault. That if she hadn't locked us in for . . . Carl? Don't die, man. Don't you leave me too."
The state trooper cleared his throat. He grimaced and tapped his wristwatch. Face impassive, Todd nodded.
"Benny? Man, we got to go." Todd lay a hand on Benny shoulder. "Come on. He:i:O, bro-"
Benny jerked his shoulder and the hand fell.
Voice cracked and shrill, Benny snarled, "No. I won't let him die."
In an agony of self-disgust, the trooper softly said, "He's gone, kid. Come on, please?" He reached down to take Benny's arm. The man shook his head. The kid was splattered with blood and brains, flakes of burned skin and oily black smoke clung to him.
"Let me alone," Benny shouted and was yanked to his feet.
With a snarl, Benny jerked free. He reached down below his crotch and snatched out his knife from the pocket there. The blade snicked open. He crouched over the body, his teeth gleaming as eager sharks snapped pictures. The chill wind plucked at his hair.
Benny's head tipped to one side. The switchblade raised before his eyes, pushing out slowly, slowly, in an unmistakable and frightening challenge.
"Kid? Benny Grey. Give me the knife." Warning, a touch of fear, deepened his voice. He held out his left hand, his right slowly undoing the cover of his holster.
Sweat chilled the trooper's face. He didn't want to hurt the kid. But, Grey was bad clear through. Everybody knew it. Unless the boy was stopped, he might kill somebody.
Todd stepped between them. A second trooper grabbed him, jerking him aside.
A heavy hand clamped down hard on the first man's wrist.
The cop scowled up into a broad, powerful face that towered a foot or better over his.
"If you please, officer." The huge face stretched into a friendly, mild grin. Something in the eyes gave the trooper pause, and his mouth became a thin hard line to keep his lips from trembling.
"The boy . . . " luminous brown eyes glanced briefly at Benny, "is my- a friend." Pity flickered for an instant on the face, then was replaced by a grim look that warned the man he would brook no argument.
"Who are you?"
The face split into a warm smile. "Why, I'm the boy's daddy."
The cop gaped in disbelief from the broad, tobacco brown face, to the pale, chilling face of the boy. He scowled, shook his head and opened his mouth to speak.
"I kind of adopted the boy." The giant shrugged at the heavy skepticism in the trooper's eyes. "He is family, and I can prove it."
The hand eased its vice-like grip, and the cop grimaced as blood rushed back in. He replaced the gun in his holster and shrugged.
"Make it fast."
The giant nodded and moved ponderously to Benny.
He crouched on his haunches.
"O:tsi:Yu, ayotli Grey-wolf."
Todd gusted a sigh of relief and touched the man. "Hey, adu:tsi Henri."
"Hey you're own self, nephew Toddy." The brown eyes widened in what might have been fright. "Them crazy twins
ain't here, are they?" The gaze darted around at the crowds. The little girls could be anywhere, picking pockets, or giving gape-toothed, angelic smiles while they cut the gizzard out of some poor fool stupid enough to mishandle them. And that was the nicer habits they had. Henri shuddered.
"No, they're at home."
Henri looked at the blood spattered over his adopted son and groaned. Thank you, Lord, that it wasn't Benny's.
Ol' Carl, he wasn't much in a whole lot of ways, but he loved this boy, and kept Benny safe from Leda. Henri glanced over where they were scraping Leda's corpse off the ground. He let a thin, cold smile play over his lips. Looked like ol' Papa Bear had done it on purpose. Carl always was the direct sort, a true-wolf. Dude must a known what he was doing, and he had done them all a favor by taking out a major player in this elaborate game of cat-&-mouse.
Pity Carl was dead, but thank You, Jesus, so was the bitch.
Benny looked into the compassionate eyes, and said harshly, "Carl ain't dead, Pappy. I know he ain't -"
"He's gone from his body, kid," Henri told him, blunt, as a man deserved to be told the truth.
Benny opened his mouth to protest, and Henri cut him off. "You think that the kind a man Carl was, that he'd want you laying around whining and feeling sorry for yourself? Here you are, crying over what might o' been. Bull-shit. Heist your lily white ass out o' here and let these men get their job done."
"Fuck off," Benny shouted, his voice broke hard. He sank to the ground and stared blankly at Carl.
"Benny? Son?" Henri shook Benny, Benny's head lolled on his shoulders, his eyes blank. "Dammit, boy. This isn't the time or the place to go to the
dohi:yi." He cast a worried glance around at the crowd. "I'm not here by accident," he said to Todd. "Old man Ryan was supposed to meet Leda at the airport with Benny and Carl. The Project has men waiting there. Ryan heard about the accident and decided to grab the kid and hold him for more money -"
Todd stiffened and glared up past Henri's broad shoulders.
The thin, emaciated shadow fell across them.
A camera bulb exploded and the old man winced, shielding his face.
Head sinking between his shoulders, Henri scowled bleakly.
"Ah, shiest."
"Bring the lad." The old man gave the three a pleasant smile. He looked at Benny and saw money in his European accounts, at Leda and saw the end of a deadly rival.
Michael 'The Spider' Ryan considered himself to be a connoisseur, a gourmand of the flesh. He eyed Benny, appreciating the depth of chest, the dark beauty of the face, the boy's youth and strength. Benny was too short to bring much on the underground slave market which had existed since open dealings in his trade became punishable by hanging or long, insufferable sentences in prison, but the profits were inestimably better.
Ah, well, but that mattered not. It was a grand game he played, as well as rewarding. Benny was worth far more to a certain party than he would ever bring on the Market. Such a lovely boy. Such darling children he would undoubtedly sire. Ryan sighed. Too very bad that monstrous god of the universe would not allow him to see them, to taste of their pearled essence. Ah, the money he would lose by not being alive.
Henri loomed before the slight and frail man. He snarled down, blinding white teeth showing all the way to his molars in a hungry grin. In alarm the old man withdrew a step and pulled from his coat a small, rectangular box.
"Now, Henri me lad, think of all our months together. 'Twould do ye little good to fall afoul of me now, would it not?" He tapped a red and glowering stud.
Face graying, Henri stumbled back, his hand clutching the collar around his neck. Closing his eyes against the sight of the remote, Henri nodded.
"I have him, Mr.. Ryan, sir." Henri stared, eyes dull on the little man.
"Very good, Henri. Bring him." Eyes bird bright, he said to the trooper, "The boy is in my care, officer. You can run along now."
"Well, I don't know, Mr. Ryan," the trooper said. He eyed Ryan, his lips curling. Ryan was an untouchable bastard. The younger the kids, the better he liked them. "The kid did pull a blade on me. I have to arrest him."
"Nonsense, officer. He's but a child, y' know. I'm certain it can all be worked out with the boy-o's downtown, hey?" Ryan smiled and motioned at Henri.
Benny stared at the ground letting Henri pull him along. Close to being unconscious, his head wobbled and his eyes were unfocused. And then the constant shifting of the crowd moved them between him and Carl.
He screamed and clawed at Henri.
Benny was slapped down, shoved to the ground. Ryan stepped in.
"See you this, me fine lad?" he said, his voice softly dangerous, showing the remote to the screaming sixteen year old. "'Tis your electronic lord and master, come t' fetch you home. Poor mistress VanTur, how she has missed you, me boy," he exclaimed with a cackle of laughter. "Come, up wi' him! He's fine and quiet now, ain't the boy? Take him to me Deusenburg, and be certain he does not soil the upholstery." Ryan snorted a laugh and turned away.
"Do not fear, Benny," Ryan called over one shoulder. "All will be as it should be very, very soon. Ha."
The scars from a training collar he had worn a year ago itched and burned. The controls branded into his soul forced him to obey. He opened his mouth, tried to breathe through the ever tightening obstruction of the phantom collar.
Henri took Benny to the passenger side door. He blinked against the tears threatening to overflow his eyes. "Man, but you don't have to go," he said hoarsely and shook Benny's arm. He sighed. "Benny? Yo, kid? Can you hear me?" He looked into Benny eyes and saw an endless glaze of terror.
"Kid," Henri pleaded, "Go, and go now, or the Project will slam you back into the Manse and you'll be whoring again. You think you ought to be making babies for those nut-cases and their nutty ESP experiments?"
The kid stared at Henri, unseeing, uncaring.
Henri groaned. He shook Benny and got nothing but blindness.
"Lord," he muttered in the direction of the House of the Rising Sun, "I do not want to do this, but it looks like I got no choice."
Drawing back his hand, the man slapped Benny hard. The crack startled several by-standers.
The Warrior-guardian spirit, Two Swords, rumbled and bared his teeth. The sun-person towered over Henri, murder in his deep, ominous eye sockets. His hand jerked back, and ripped out his sword, the glowering double blades of the macana a-Heart-a'-Fire. The balance flared a fiery blue. Within the sapphire heart of the massive balance an ember exploded into a blaze. Lightening cracked down the length of the silver-chased blades, hissing and snapping. Heart' shrilled a battle cry, urging the Warrior-guardian to destroy the man for striking their charge.
Two Swords rumbled, the sword jerked up, towered over the man's head.
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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