NOBODY

PART 2

I only read this story when I feel down, to remind myself of how my life could have turned out if he has not crossed my path. But then I think of him every single day with a shuddering breath as I'd like to think, watching the uneventful news, that he was thankfully left to his much wanted peace…

Or so I thought.

I should have known that evil never sleeps, at least not for very long. It was that night, the unusually black starless night a few days ago, when I heard it on the news. A young girl died. Barely fifteen. She was the third in just three weeks. The first two have gone missing, only their blood was found smeared in the streets. Like spouting stains dragged out with a mop.

The latest slit her wrists, they said. Needles to add, having access thanks to my great new job, I went to see for myself, and as I expected, it was far from the truth. Her arm had been left bruised and horribly burned to cover the telltale, fateful needle marks. Only they didn't finish their grisly cover-up. They have been disturbed, or simply didn't care in their filthy arrogance.

I couldn't sleep that night, just like tonight - sitting outside, watching the stars come to life in the disturbingly darkening sky. So they returned. Bringing death back to this damned town. I suppose it had to happen sometime. Only I thought, like everyone else, that they never would. I never thought I would see anyone like them again, not after what had happened over two years ago. It had them all scared. Damn scared. It kept the city in a blissful peace. Peace from crime. The unexplained vanishing of an entire drugs gang in one night. Just like that, without a trace. The news had kept running with it for so long, it became an urban legend. 'The black death claims the crime gang.' or 'A reprieve at last for a crime ridden city.'

I laughed. And I kept it to myself. Only I knew it was no black death but a black angel. My secret dark angel, who kept me living all this time - by killing everyone else in my life. It wasn't enough though. I so wish I could have done more as I stare wonderingly at the fading lights outside. All the buried dark secrets, all the injustice done so cruelly to an innocent world, all the corruption by the powerful no one dares to question or even mention. Even I keep it quiet. No one would believe me. I am powerless. Stricken down by those who have been paid, like the little lapdogs my father used to keep.

A shudder of deep chill sliding down my spine is all that is left for me to feel.

I would have rolled a cigarette if I smoked. Isn't that what the hopeless do? Inhale a fag and hope the shivers of fear will go away? I don't smoke. So instead, I gaze at the sky, hoping to see something else; a sign. A sign that at the same time I hope to never see. It is strange, for I have never seen the aurora borealis until two years ago. And despite wishing for something to happen so badly, just one more chance for proving my own pathetic worth, I could never wish to take his peace away.

Stupid and selfish, that's what I am. Though it is what started to happen three weeks ago that made me see the pair of magnetic, arctic-windswept eyes again. I see them everywhere and in everything. They haunt me. They compel me to reach for the old, used paper I keep with me all the time, and read it one more time to bring their unwavering fearlessness closer to me, closer to my despairing soul…

'I know that my hours are numbered, and I wait with calm and collected soul for the fate that awaits me, but in the meantime…while I wait for his silent steps and cold blade to reach me, I can fill my time by writing this story. But I will keep this story short. For it won't be long, any time now, when he finally comes…'

He will not come.

I look up with a strain of fright battering my heart as I perceive strong presence so near me I could reach out and touch its unbelievable chill. Yet when I finally dare to move and turn my head, it is only the leaves on the twisted tree underneath which I sit that cast waltzing shadows into my startled eyes.

Letting out a slow shuddering breath of relief, I put my papers away and pick myself up, wanting to go back inside. It would do this world even less good if I got myself killed, no matter how small a difference I could ever make. Still, I cannot help but cast one more destitute gaze at the star-bright sky, wishing for one more miracle, just one more chance, searching silently for even the smallest change or a flicker of light.

The need overpowers me so cruelly in the silent, unmoving night that I have to reach for an empty sheet of crinkled, yellowing paper that I held so many times in my hesitant hand. Rubbing the piece of old memory between my fingers as I pull out a pen, I know what I need to do. If nothing but to feel better, I have to bring the miracle to me, even if I have to drag it out from nothing and nowhere, word by word...

xXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx

It crept over my already cold body as I walked on the slippery stone path to my house. Like a breath of a ghost I knew I couldn't shake off, it was there, the presence again, waiting somewhere above me as if to pounce on me when I was to walk under it. Yet it drew my eyes upwards, wanting me to stop in my tracks and gaze.

So I gazed. Though instead of a ghost there was a real-life silhouette. Not just any silhouette but one I would recognize instantly. The long straight back, ends lifting gently in the intermittent breeze. The soft spikes, inviting the glow of the moonlight to turn bright silver in the dark night. The distinct long shape of a sheathed sword, held closely to a tall, statuesque form.

Not one of us spoke, and by the time my eyes so foolishly flicked away to thank the ever-present stars, he was gone without a sound or a perceivable movement. I remained staring at the now empty spot, the image of him persistently imprinted to the back of my eyes.

He needn't say anything though, for I knew exactly what he wanted. I had to deliver on my silent promise and become the better person, fearless of the stinky trash that needed to be taken out. Strange how he knew that I had it in me all this time, only needed that one last push, a gift of encouragement – from him.

The next morning, I woke up with a stubborn resolve. My job was to investigate for crying out loud, and that's what I was going to do if it killed me. Picking up my indispensable gear which consisted of a tape recorder, pen and paper, I set off straight for the police station.

I asked, no- demanded, to speak to the cop who'd closed the case without as much as a single backward glance. His welcome was a hostile surprise mixed with mocking arrogance. A female reporter would be easy to deal with, he no doubt thought. Even my tough questions didn't throw him, yet I knew that he was hiding something. He became evasive and pushed me out of the door, mouthing a threatening warning to stay out of it when no others could see. She had killed herself, he said, as no one dared to set their dirty footsteps around here anymore.

I didn't believe the first part one bit, but the second I had to agree with. Crime lords drew a cross across their shoulders and turned their backs at the mere thought of coming our way. One should be happy, but I wasn't. Something was very off.

Recording everything as was my old habit, I visited the crime scene next. Someone must have seen something I insisted in my head as I strode confidently from business to business and from house to house, knocking on the doors. Again, not much more than evasiveness and fear greeted me, but each time a little snippet of the puzzle has been placed on the blank canvas of my mind.

Exhausted, on the brink of twilight, I ventured into a narrow lane where the last houses I wanted to check out were hiding in a darkening blind end. Looking down at the old cobbles lining the alley, a solid thought started to take a shape in my head. The girl had been killed, that was certain. But who would have everyone so scared, even defying the urban legend… The question remained pasted to the tip of my tongue when I felt a shadow slither along the wall on my left.

Becoming petrified in a frozen moment of time, the boldness which I wasn't sure I liked soon took over and set me on the move. Only I moved deeper into the alley rather than away from it as I should have done if I had any sense. To my inward relief, at least I didn't call out to whoever was there like the usual stupid victim, but sneaked quietly along the shadowed side of the lane. What I didn't count on however was how loudly my heart was beating, so invitingly pounding into the deafening black silence around me as I flipped my body round the corner.

The pounding in my chest spilled uncontrollably into my brain as a shrieking scream pierced my ear and I felt myself being yanked harshly backwards, landing hard on the stone pavement. The fall must have shaken me back to my senses as all noises ceased instantly and my eyes looked around for my attacker.

Thinking of getting up and getting the hell out of there, I instead froze completely to the cold cobbles as I stared straight in front of me. There was what I wished to see, now dreading my presence as I was unable to even breathe.

Three or four shadows expanded on the wall, prolonging to grotesque humanly shapes. One hand stretched and stretched further to me, becoming larger than my whole body, lifting right above me. It held a knife, as large as five butcher knives tied together. If I didn't know better, I'd say it looked like a frigging reaper.

It struck so quickly I only had the time to open my mouth into an ear-shredding scream. The terrible scream though didn't come from me. It had come from a young girl, being very close, and I just managed to shift slightly to peak round the corner as I had tried to do before. Nothing stopped me anymore, to my deep regret, as what I saw I had always managed to turn away from before. Not this time.

Teeth tottering, my eyes became glued in horror to the four hooded figures bending over their dying victim. They didn't seem to waste time covering up the murder as their heads dipped down, returning back up full of torn off pieces from the young girl's flesh. Blood splattered in a perfectly straight line with every frightening chuckle they made throwing back their heads as they gorged on the lifeless body, only spurts of gurgling coming from the girl's bloodied throat.

It made me sick, and I just had to let go. Momentarily breaking contact so that I could splatter not much less sickening contents of my stomach to the floor below me, I suddenly realized what noise I made. Whipping my head right back up without even wiping my mouth, I let my eyes tell me instantly that I was in deep shit.

Their charcoal faces all stared at me, chunks of dripping flesh still hanging from their mouths. In a blinding instant they made half of the distance between the dead body and me. They were no drug dealers, I have never seen anything like it. They had no guns, no normal clothes, and their eyes were deep red.

In a hysteric frenzy, I scrambled to my feet, running in slow motion compared to the alarmingly nearing clacks on the cobbles. I will never make it run through my racing mind as I desperately reached into my pocket. I pulled out my pen, thrusting it behind me before I half turned, the feel of a cold breath lapping at my sweating neck.

Tears broke out in my eyes when the awful spray of sticky blood reached the side of my face. I foolishly debated whether it was mine or one of the murderers' stabbed with my pen, when I slipped and tumbled down onto my hands and knees painfully. Flipping over with my pen clenched in my hand, I thrust it forth at whatever may come, when my eyes widened beyond the disbelief I had been long feeling.

One of the tall hooded figures stood before me, a deep scarlet hole gaping in the middle of its chest. Against my better judgment, I tilted my head to look through the massive hole to see the wall on the other side, then inspected my pen suspiciously. No, it couldn't be…

Drawing my face into an expression of denial, sure enough, as I blinked, the head was falling off its shoulders. Yet I saw nothing, not even a ripple in the air, not one clue to the attacker who was attacking those unconventional killers, whoever or whatever they were.

All I could think about at that very moment – as the head kept falling to the cold, dark pavement – was that I needed him to take out more trash than before, and this time, watch him doing it up close. To smell the blood, to watch the evil fall, to watch his divine face lift in triumph of the kill… To fill me with invincibility.

The grotesque, shriveling head bounced of the ground, a grisly jet of red squirting out. With a two second delay, the body crumpled like a detonated building, letting me enjoy the moment with my arms open while taking in a deeply inhaled breath. Every bit of space the falling foe's mass freed, it revealed a bit of him; the spikes bathed in silver of the moonlit beam, head bowed down in disguised humility into the wide shoulders garbed in blue, the endlessly straight curve of the flowing trench coat… And the liquid mercury of blood dripping ever so slowly from the blindingly resplendent blade.

I wanted to take the best seat and pay premium for the front row. I was bad again. I imagined clapping my hands and screaming in a frenzy of a crazed admirer, but I remained glued to my spot with bruised knees, the show only barely starting. This time was different though. I was not just the spectator.

Out of the blue, there were a dozen of them, leaping like silent balled up ninjas from the raven darkness. All at once, all at his deadpan form. And mine.

Twenty four hands, somehow suddenly clawed, curled inward like those of a praying mantis, flew elegantly through the air. Jaws expanded out of proportion from the hoods that fell back due to atmospheric resistance. They looked like – bloodthirsty vampires! Still he didn't blink, didn't move, just like me, only his hair stirred by the disturbed air and the scarlet droplets detached in a savage rhythm from the tip of his slender, motionless, naked sword.

I drew in a sharp breath, mouth near detaching from my jaw when I lifted up my forearm to shield my overwhelmed eyes. A vapor of deep blue swirled around me and through my parted fingers, as I stared through them at the unfolding violence.

Like the freakiest lightning I have ever seen, maddeningly fast flashes illuminated the night and the faces as they twisted in the most horrid ways just before the eyes burst into an eruption of bloody pulps. Strangely enough, they reminded me of something, in the nightmare of a fright-fest night, I saw them like I knew them even though it couldn't be in a million years. I never watched those gory films, I had enough of that in a real life.

Still, the feeling of a déjà vu entrapped me as I peered at the angelic, scarily flawless face set in pale stone amongst the flying blood and gore, and the horrifyingly ugly yet unnervingly familiar monsters. Their twisting faces revealed one by one, they brought me to my life over two years ago, a shameful, low life I never wanted to relive again.

A warm, viscid metallic spray painted my face, tearing me back to the present. I wanted to flee but I couldn't move. I had to drink it in, the feeling of might and the powerlessness of the powerful. I was bad, bad as I have ever been. I would watch the massacre till the end, till my eyes couldn't cry anymore, till my teeth ground through each other. As long as I could see evil banished from this town again. As long as I could soak in the strength from his unfailing, indestructible dominance.

The flesh tearing fangs of a few heads plunged straight into his glass neck, and I blanched at my unripe, premature thoughts.

Damn me for wishing him immortal simply to satisfy my need to bring justice to evil so easily. Nothing came too easily. Now I have brought destruction on my own dream, and I have pulled myself down back to the ground.

Yet as they pushed away with grisly mouthfuls of his ripped out flesh, he did not falter once, his blade slicing off their faces before they could swallow.

Awed gape visited my face as I watched him catch his own blooded flesh falling from their wide open mouths before their bodies folded to the ground. With an annoyed scowl he then slapped the gruesome mess back to his neck as if swatting a pesky fly. It stayed there, stitching itself back. Oh my god.

An old memory flashed before my eyes. How could I have missed it then? Those countless bullets drilling so brutally into his torso, yet he had found a way to go on as if they were balls of paint. I had been so blinded by my own bloodlust that I had not seen… That he could not have been human.

Would it have made a difference? No. Not back then, though it would make a difference now. My dream, and that of this miserable, messed up town, was right back on track. The raven black corruption was in for a nasty surprise. I cheered but kept it down. For now, I would leave the investigation of this incredulous revelation for later since first I had to concentrate on getting out of here alive. Even then, I would keep it to myself. Maybe.

Still shaking like a rabbit caught in strong headlights, I forced his strength and madness to bleed into me so that I could go on. I lifted myself up to my feet, and with the sounds of the never-ending blood-curdling slashes followed by harrowing cries, I started to sneak away. Putting my pen back into my pocket when I was about to take a turn out of the alley, I whipped round so fast at the horrifyingly inhuman voice right at my rear that I cut open my finger. Shit.

"Leaving so soon?"

I must have stared blankly for some time as an impatient twitch skipped across his ice cold portrait of a face and his narrow mouth shaped slightly to tell a few words he must have deemed sufficient for me to know. It wasn't much.

"Should you wish to stop them, find out whom to kill," the voice changed from a nightmarish gargoyle growl to a deep human, velvety baritone. He flicked the blade to the side so fast I only heard the sickening mighty splash of blood on the wall followed by a clear click of the sheath. All the while, his multidimensional, fear provoking eyes never left mine and I couldn't help but wonder yet again why he hadn't killed me two years ago.

Not me! "Whom to kill?" I choked out while remembering to try not to sound scared as he might have reacted to fear the bad way. Didn't animals attack the fearful? Hadn't he sounded like an animal?

"The humans. I cannot read them," he spoke darkly, eyebrows slightly drawn into the makings of a displeased frown.

Yes! Then I'm safe? Wishfully. "The humans?" I probed uneasily, his absolute tone making it sound like I should have known something all along. Although I had seen many monsters, unfortunately the supernatural or extraterrestrial kind had neither crossed my mind, nor my path.

"Who else. Ultimately, they have been too foolish to bring them back," he said cryptically, not moving an inch.

"Bring back whom?" I asked confused, looking around as if someone else should stand right there in the dark alley where there were nightmare creatures just seconds ago, thinking I must have sounded like a right halfwit. When I turned back to face him though, he was gone, only a swirl of fuzzy air floating where he had stood. Dammit. He could have at least given me a better start. I had literally nothing to go on.

Well at least he had talked more than the last time, and those horrid things were now gone. Yet the suddenly eerily quiet street made me acutely aware of my solitary presence. As an air of trepidation seeped into my lungs, I made for a hasty exit and run straight back home.

I got almost used to not sleeping for the past few weeks but this time, the thoughts that kept me awake were very much different. They weren't about what I couldn't do, but what I could. I had to know the truth now that he watched from the shadows without being only a shadow in my dreams. Just like two years ago when I had been charged up with the strength to make a change. Now the change will be for this diseased city where I grew up. About time.

I jumped out of the bed still dressed, and without breakfast took off, back to the police station. The officer in charge of the case came to see me and ushered me out to an empty room about to give me another lesson in not butting in.

In return I made it clear he would not get rid of me so easily this time. Saying I knew they had disguised the evidence and that I was aware about the monsters, even though I didn't really know anything about them, his paling face told me more than he did pleadingly as he backed me out of the room.

"Just go, get out of here. For God's sake, we just wanted to get paid, to get our jobs back. We never thought they would eat them."

When he squeezed me out of the building I turned in horror at his last words, whipping in slow motion as my brain worked my mouth before I could stop it.

"You tell me who is responsible, or I will go to the metro-media." I stared at his scared face amazed at my own boldness, my mouth still open as if not believing what I had just said. The media would never believe me either yet I could be killed simply for making this empty threat.

He gazed back with saddened eyes, then his head shook in a defeated admission. "You can't stop it, no matter what you did. No one can."

"Just tell me!" I found myself grinding through my teeth, suddenly attacked by a rush of contempt. He was a cop, a captain, and scared shitless. God help us.

He looked around, as if to check if anyone was listening, then said in a hushed up voice. "Everyone. Everyone in the highest places." Then he disappeared behind closed door.

A frightening thought took hold of my whirring mind as I numbly walked away. What have they done? Did they invite some gang here to bring crime back to town? To then get paid to turn a blind eye? Those monstrous things though, they were eating that poor girl, hardly a profitable crime. Did they drug her up first? It didn't make sense. Oh my God! They ate the first two. Only smudges of blood remained. But who are those hooded men? Some flesh eating cult? A clan of criminal cannibals? Neither appealed to me in the slightest. I shook from head to toe in pure disgust.

All I knew at that very moment wasn't much, regardless, I had to stop it. I needed to make a list. A kill list. For him. Now I knew what the swordsman meant and it filled me with the coldest of chills. On top of it, what had he meant by not being able to read humans? Who was he able to read? Those like him? There are more like him?

Not wanting the answer back just yet, I returned to the list. It had to start with the easiest one. The biggest high placed coward in town should provide all I needed. With a little help from a certain dark angel.

…I would start with the Supreme Judge.