"Fazer Nao Zanga Os Deuses"
Chapter One
325 Kingston St, Indianapolis, Indiana
April 21st, 2001, 8:47 p.m.
As usual, Dilvo's was packed from wall to wall with bodies. It had been open for less than half an hour, but there were still customers waiting to get in from the outside. Theodore O'Shaungnessy could not understand why they waited. All he wanted was a drink; well, maybe quite a few.
Real estate business was slouching like a bored teenager, and his wife was turning into a nagging hag. All she wanted to do was talk about their last credit card bill or ask him why they should continue to have cable if neither of them were home to watch it.
This club was on his way home from the office, and O'Shaungnessy had the good fortune to snag a decent parking spot a block away as well as get himself inside without any trouble. It had actually been about twenty years since he'd even set foot in a nightclub, and back then, they were still called 'discotheques'. The only things that had changed were the clothes and music. Bodies still mingled together with the scent of human perspiration, and drugs were still being passed all over the dance floor.
The thumping bass pounding out of the P.A. system made his ears hurt, but everyone else on the dance floor seemed to be entranced by it. In fact, they loved it. The current song was slow and sultry; it almost made him feel like he was part of a giant orgy in a porno flick. Not that he minded it of course. Most of the young ladies were very hot and would definitely be open to a mature gentleman waiting with a drink at the bar for them instead of waiting for a promise of one from a younger and inexperienced youth.
O'Shaungnessy downed his third sour apple martini, ordered a fourth from the bar, and added another ice cube to his accompanying drink. Now the music didn't bother him as much, and soon, he might join the swarming mass of human flesh on the dance floor. None of the girls at the bar seemed to be too interested in him, so he threw back another martini and carried the margarita on the rocks with him to join the crowd. It was pointless to try and start a meaningful conversation, so he just hugged the drink closer to his chest and felt the ice practically melt in his hands.
Another drug deal occurred right before his eyes; it was probably X. Users that consumed it regularly claimed that it was the ultimate 'love drug' and made them feel happier when they made love. O'Shaungnessy knew that that message was a falsehood; Ecstasy actually slowed everything down--it was a euphoric drug, but it actually was a depressant, not an upper. But unfortunately, people still used it despite the lie.
Suddenly, the music changed completely from a mellow, sensuous beat to a song with high energy and a frantic siren that pulsed once too often. It was almost as if the DJ had just taken some mind altering drug himself. And O'Shaungnessy felt himself become one with his fellow dancers. Just as he felt the brush of a younger woman's hips against himself, something stung him in the ear. He turned around clumsily to look at his assailant but found no one armed still standing there.
Something did not feel quite right, and he accidentally spilled most of the margarita onto his shirt. "Damn," he spat and backed out of the pool of bodies.
A man with ebony hair streaked with flecks of gray and blue eyes grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around roughly. "Have too much to drink?" he sneered.
The action winded O'Shaungnessy enough to drop the margarita glass entirely to the floor, and he clumsily bent down to try and pick up the broken pieces. His assailant seized O'Shaungnessy by the shirt and hauled him out of the club.
"What the..." O'Shaungnessy muttered drunkenly as his eyes adjusted to the harsh streetlights outside. "Hey, where're we goin'?"
The man did not answer him; instead, he shoved O'Shaungnessy into the back of a 1988 Jeep and shut the door. "I don't wanna go nowhere! Let me out!" he slurred. He regained some control of himself and tried to locate the door handle, but unfortunately, he was not agile enough yet to open it. "Let me out!"
Dr. Bartholomew Ward grunted with frustration as he watched his intoxicated captive try to fight his way out of the Jeep. The thought had been rather amusing at first, but now, he was beginning to sober up. He frowned after gazing again at a neighborhood bank's digital clock. The time now read 9:09. Kovach needed to move things along quickly if they were to commence the testing on time.
But Kovach emerged from Dilvo carrying a young woman in a fireman's carry a few minutes later. She is almost unconscious, Ward noted.
"That might complicate our procedure," he told Kovach aloud and pointed to the girl.
"She's not dead," Kovach countered. "I took her vitals."
"Our assignment requires live patients."
"Yes, but I did not want to attract any attention to myself. You, however," Kovach signaled with his head over to his car, "might just do that soon."
O'Shaungnessy had now found the door handle and began to pump it madly back and forth. Ward shot Kovach an impassive glance and shrugged. "Too drunk to figure out that it's locked. Shall we?"
"Yes, let's," Kovach agreed and stowed the woman in the back seat.
Twenty minutes later...
The two men heaved the bodies into Kovach's apartment. The woman, Vanessa Walsh, remained complacent and serene throughout the whole ordeal. Unfortunately, O'Shaungnessy was giving Ward much more trouble than he anticipated. The apple martinis were wearing off, and he refused to sit down voluntarily in a kitchen chair beside Walsh.
"I will resort to unpleasant methods should you continue your course of actions," Ward admonished O'Shaungnessy, who growled and snarled at him without hesitancy.
O'Shaungnessy lunged himself straight at Ward and was met with the unexpectedness of the ex-coroner's dodge. He swiftly pivoted himself to the left and let the drunk ineptly fall flat on his face. Ward then grabbed one of the man's arms, twisted it unnaturally behind his back, and started to lift the forearm up towards his shoulders.
Just as O'Shaungnessy began to grunt, Ward placed his other hand on the shoulder to ready himself, and proceeded to break his arm. O'Shaugnessy's cry of pain caused Kovach to pause from his chores and turn around to witness the spectacle. "You will cooperate now," Ward commanded his captive, who now cowered in mortal fear below him.
"Sit in that chair and be still," Ward continued.
O'Shaungnessy slowly arose and did as he was told while nursing his freshly broken limb. Kovach made eye contact with Ward, who nodded. "It is time."
The deputy coroner removed a tray from his refrigerator that a test tube rack rested upon, and Ward donned a pair of latex white gloves.
"What's happening?" O'Shaungnessy inquired.
He was answered with silence as Kovach removed some of the chemical from one of the test tubes and placed it into a syringe. He then handed the needle to Ward and left the living room. "What is that shit?" he asked as Ward traveled behind him.
"This is a cardiotonic steroid--it is used in modern medical science nowadays to correct a patient's erratic heart rate," Ward replied and parted some of O'Shaungnessy's hair down the middle.
"There's nothin' wrong with me. I don't have heart problems."
"I didn't say that that was what I was treating, did I?" He peered at the greenish liquid inside of the syringe and inserted it onto the man's scalp.
"What the hell...are you..." O'Shaungnessy clambered out of his chair and fell to the floor again.
Ward simply stepped over his writhing body and collected some more liquid from another test tube. In the bathroom, Kovach turned on the bathtub faucet.
The ex-coroner performed the same procedure on Walsh, who was starting to stir to some form of consciousness. As this new drug hit her, her head lolled to one side, and she became comatose once more.
Five minutes later, Kovach came back with a stiletto syringe then jabbed it into O'Shaungnessy's ribs. He showed it to Ward after examining it himself. "There's been no change to the purity's cell structure," he concluded.
"Test the woman as well," Ward ordered, and Kovach did so, but this time, he did not stab her. He carefully inserted it into her ear and withdrew it a few seconds later. The deputy coroner shook his head and gave the needle to his former superior.
"We have failed, Dr. Ward," he admitted. "Should we go with the contingency plan?"
"That is our path," Ward agreed. "The woman should be first. There will be more blood and less time to eradicate our presence later. Assist me, Dr. Kovach."
Together, they lifted Walsh's lifeless body from the ground, undressed her, and slid her naked form into the bathtub. Ward unsheathed the stiletto from its hidden place inside the syringe's chamber, lifted the woman's chin, and pierced it perfectly in the jugular vein.
Walsh's blood spurted out spasmodically onto Ward's gloves at first, but then Ward reached into the water and shoved her down farther. He reached around the other side of Walsh's neck and felt for a pulse. It was strong as he had hoped. The doctor stood from his kneeling spot and removed the gloves.
"Given her blood pressure rate, she'll perish within the hour. Start your preparation on the man." Ward left the gloves on the bathtub ledge and left the bathroom.
"Where're you going?" Kovach questioned him.
"I require nutrition--what's in the fridge?"
