Chapter 24

Lipton paused on the stoop of the South City Brownstone Tenements and wondered why in God's good name anybody would want to live here. Leaves and garbage from months gone by collected at the bottom of the rusted iron handrails. Part of a welcome mat disintegrated in front of the double paned glass door entrance. Large cracks spanned the doors from corner to corner and an array of roasted bugs trapped in the middle of the panels invited visitors to a free lunch.

Lipton glanced up through the rain at the foggy unwashed columns of windows set into the face of the building. Rough iron bars glared back at him even from the higher floors. The landlord couldn't have people trying to escape their miserable lives from the fifth floor bedroom window. The insurance wouldn't cover it.

A cheap set of plastic blinds on the third floor rattled closed and grew still. After spotting an officer of the law on the doorstep, they were probably on their way to the bathroom to flush whatever they were cooking down the toilet. Better to be cautious than in prison. There was always a chance to make more. Lipton turned his chin down and pulled the rim of his checkered hat a little lower. Blue and white squares were big bold targets in places like this. Not to mention a dead giveaway to who he was and what his interests were. But speed was essential and he didn't have time to change out of his uniform and blend in with the masses before leaving the police station.

The Midtown Murderer worked quickly. He never lingered and he didn't stick around to gloat. Killing people as fast as possible for as long as he could without getting caught was his only prerogative. No attack was ever the same. The timing, target, and location were always different. Growing more proficient with each kill was just an unintended bonus. Being unpredictable was the only predictable thing about him aside from the end result. But this time, the situation was different. The killer had returned to the scene of the crime. They all do eventually, the really sick ones that is, but this wasn't just any crime. It was the one that started it all. Something, or rather, someone, had finally caught up to him and there was only one person fast enough to do that.

"Hold him a little longer, Annie," Lipton thought to himself. "I'm almost there."

Sergeant John Lipton hopped up the steps to the entrance and placed himself against the wall beside the door out of habit. If Rockwell's tip was right, a man matching the description of Midtown's most wanted was seen entering the building using a squirtle keychain. No one had come or gone from the building since Lipton's arrival. Most of the tenants were probably at work or hold up in the privacy of their units which increased the chances that the next person Lipton ran into would be the madman himself. Going in half-cocked wasn't an option.

Sergeant Lipton drew back his elbow and touched the safety strap of the revolver holster at his left side. Another matched it on the right. The cold steel bit his fingertips, startling his hand forward onto the pokeball fastened to his belt. The internal heat of the pokemon within relaxed the sergeant's fidgeting fingers. As much as Lipton wanted the arcanine at his side, Apollo just wasn't practical in an indoor fight. Muscle memory enticed Lipton's hand to the handle of the projectile stun gun attached to his utility belt.

The stunner fit perfectly in his hand, reassuring him that this wasn't the first time he raided a sketchy building in an even sketchier neighborhood. The only difference was that he was alone. Backup wasn't waiting around the corner. The dispatch radio wasn't listening for a distress signal. But that's how the commissioner wanted it. One man. One vendetta and one result. It was do or die for the both of them. With a resigned exhale, Lipton pulled back his arm once more and took the Cofield family legacy he was duty bound to uphold in hand. He hid the weapon along his leg to avoid startling any passing bystanders and pulled a key out from his pocket.

The new landlord provided a copy after his predecessor's untimely end and never asked for it back. A true watchman that one. Then again, given the history of the building it might as well have been condemned. A quick turn unlocked the door. Lipton slipped inside and entered the main hallway where the mailboxes were located. His boots left dark imprints on the dingy red carpet, moistening years of dirt permanently matted into the fibers. Cloudy overhead lights droned with a fluorescence better suited for a morgue than a residential building in the ceiling. Mold spores drifted through the air instead of dust and tickled Lipton's nose.

A television set played in the background somewhere. It sounded like a news reel, but it was too quiet to make out. Knowing other people were in the building unnerved the sergeant. At any moment, a door could open, someone could appear, and he'd have to make that split second decision whether to pull the trigger or not. Lipton readjusted his grip on the revolver and licked his quickly drying lips. The last thing he needed was to get jumpy and accidentally shoot somebody. If the Midtown Murderer was haunting his old hunting grounds, then there was only one unit he would be in. Annie Cofield's old apartment. And if he wasn't there, the only other place he was likely to be was on the stairs on his way out.

This narrowed and refocused the sergeant's mission. He aimed his sights up the stairwell and tightened his movements into full raiding preparation. He'd need every second if it came to a battle of the high ground. Surprise was his only advantage in this fight. Lipton placed his boot on the first step. It creaked with uncanny loudness just to spite him. Lipton wanted to smash those boards with his steel toe and really give them something to scream about, but that would only create more noise and attention.

The whole situation was a strategic nightmare made even more horrifying by the fact that even if circumstances were in his favor, they wouldn't make that much of a difference. With a pokemon trainer as deadly as the pokemon, everyone else just became prey. With a hard pinched wince, Lipton carefully ascended the rickety stairwell. He guided his weapon along the rail above him until he finally reached the fifth floor.

The sound of the TV was gone now. So was the scratching and shuffling of unseen persons behind closed doors. In fact, there was no sign that anyone lived on this floor at all. The bannister was dusty. Cobwebs clung unusually thick in the corners and chipped paint defaced the numbers on each unit. There wasn't a doormat, name plate, or wreath in sight. Lipton couldn't even find a piece of abandoned mail to indicate anyone had ever lived here in the past.

As far as he knew, Annie's old unit wasn't being re-leased. Neither were the two down the hall closest to her. The rest of her neighbors must have moved out of their own free will, spurred by the superstition of knowing that three of their neighbors had been murdered in cold blood. The weight of that grim reality was palpable. It exerted a pressure against the surroundings, warping the floor boards and curling the faded wallpaper from its seams. Even the light from the overhead fixtures was narrow and dim as the shadows pressed in around them.

Something about the way the surrounding air moved, or rather, didn't move around the hallway made everything abnormally quiet. It was as if time itself had gone stale. It created a leftover stagnant dimension unfamiliar with life, light, or luster. Every breath had a weight to it. It forced one's heart to work harder against the forces slowly squeezing in around it. Living here wasn't natural. It was invasive and unwanted, and the fact that a building could make a person feel like that twisted Lipton's gut tighter than a dish rag.

Lipton pressed on through the invisible dimensional sludge. Several softly tread and calculated steps carried him toward the unit located at the far end of the floor. About halfway down, his skin began to prickle. Two thirds of the way and a strange taste filled his mouth. It vibrated with the same metallic tingle that kids felt when they shoved metal forks and batteries into their mouths. Several internal alarms in the sergeant's body suddenly went off. Every scrap of intuition and instinct warned him not to get any closer.

Lipton stopped just outside of Officer Cofield's old apartment. The door was slightly ajar. Someone had either come or gone before him. He edge a little closer and peered into the unit from the crack in the door. Cheap hand-me-down furniture lined the walls. Their placement opened up what little floor space was left in the middle. Not much more information was available with such a limited view. Better double check with a few other tricks. Lipton turned his ear to the door, held his breath, and listened. Strange mutterings drifted through from the other side.

The unit wasn't as empty as it was supposed to be.

Lipton steadied the revolver in his hand. This was it. He pushed the door open, stepped into the center of the frame, and did the worst thing a police officer could do. Hesitate.

A large hulking figure stood at the kitchenette counter with his back to the entrance. Shreds of a dirty ripped tarp flapped within the frame of the glassless window in front of him. The heavy flaps of plastic moved stiffly with the draft, much like the tails of the long dark trench coat drenching the man from neck to ankle. Lipton pressed the back of one hand over his nose. He blinked several times to hold back the tears. The smell in the room was overpowering. Like metal that rotted as much as it rusted. It smelled old. Familiar.

Like death.

The putrid odor drifted from the man's trench coat like an unseen fog. The coat was supposed to be blue, but so much blood had soaked into the fabric that it turned the threads a purple better suited for seviper. The collar was turned up to protect the man's neck from the chill of the rain dribbling in from the outside. The flaps arched outward near the top, giving his neck a slim appearance while accentuating the size of the shoulders below. The man looked as if he had been pulled up from the floor by a gengar, but hadn't quite materialized just yet.

The shrouded figure stared at a pair of mismatched mugs set side by side on the countertop. He touched the rim of one of the mugs, nudging it ever so slightly out of the dust.

"Hello, Badges," it said.

The single working overhead light in the room flickered.

There was only one person in all of Midtown to have ever called him that. Lipton didn't need to see the man's face to know it was Midtown's first and finest serial killer. The one and only Zachary Binx. His voice sounded different. It was controlled and calm. A far cry different than the flailing and screaming of the interrogation room, but when one had an identity crisis of his caliber, it was only natural for his psychosis to eventually follow suit. Lipton preferred the paranoia. It wasn't nearly as dangerous.

"Are you here to kill me?" Zach prompted without ever turning around.

It was a good question. One the gun in Lipton's hand should've answered the moment he opened the door.

"Well, go on then," Zach baited, angling his head ever so slightly.

Lipton didn't move. He had the Midtown Murderer dead to rights, but he couldn't pull the trigger because he couldn't stop thinking about Annie. How she saw something in this monster that no one else did. If he pulled the trigger now, it would prove that her way of thinking didn't matter. That the MPD was no better than the criminals they arrested. If he pulled the trigger, he'd kill her twice over.

"What are you waiting for?" Zach pressed.

The pressure in the room suddenly intensified to oppressive levels. No amount of training, reasoning, or experience could stop Lipton's heart from flooding his muscles with adrenaline. It warned him of imminent danger. And for good reason. Lipton chanced a glance around the room. The dark corner beside the dresser was empty. So was the space behind the bathroom door. A fire escape was visible outside of the tarp covering the open window, but not a single dark silhouette crept across the plastic canvas. No fangs or claws teased the edges of the curtain with a smile. Lipton couldn't see the great black pantherian, but he could feel her. That much bloodlust didn't just disappear into thin air. She was here. Somewhere. Waiting for her chance to lung at his neck again. The seconds passed. Lipton shifted deeper into the room to draw her out. Nothing happened.

Now, they were just toying with him.

"You can't do it, can you?" Zach suddenly surmised.

The conversation he was having with himself was strangely intuitive. It made Lipton's skin crawl. He readjusted his grip again because his hands were starting to sweat. God, the revolver was heavy. He underestimated little Annie Cofield. The weight she carried on those narrow shoulders would've broken most men.

"You've never killed anyone before, have you?" Zach concluded.

Lipton wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

Zach looked away from the mugs and looked at the serrated steak knife set out on the counter beside him. The teeth of its edge cut the air drifting by. Even its shadow drew a hard line across the counter. Who knew drawing steel through so many vertebra would polish it to such a nice shine?

"Here," Zach continued. He took the knife in his hand and turned around to properly face his guest. "Let me show you how it's done."

In a flicker of the overhead light, Lipton finally found the pantherian he was waiting for. Zach lunged forward, faster than humanly possible for a cripple. Years of training for that split second decision hardened Lipton's muscle memory into reflex. He pulled the trigger, but the weapon was heavy, clumsy, and unfamiliar in his hands. The first bullet pegged into the cabinetry of the kitchenette. The resulting kickback knocked the following two off course. One whizzed past Zach's face. The other shattered one of the mugs on the counter. Ceramic pieces were still flying through the air when Zach closed the distance. He grabbed the gun and part of Lipton's wrist, pulling him closer while driving the knife in towards his ribs.

Lipton sprang into a forward roll with the yank and twisted his hands free to land behind Zach in a crouch. He lost the gun when it clattered to the floor, but his hands were better suited for other weapons anyway. Lipton popped up with 50,000 volts to back him up. Zach whirled around, right into the barbs of the stunner. He paused. Looked down. Then ripped the barbs out. Lipton heard the mechanics working. Electricity clicked and rattled, even as the madman clutched the conductors in his bare hands, but it had no effect. Was it an internal failure?

Zach jerked on the wires, hoping to draw the sergeant closer. Lipton released the weapon freely. It wasn't worth losing his footing for. He then snapped out his baton with a surge of sparks. Hopefully, these would be more help.

Zach steadied the knife in his hand and charged again, crushing the broken pieces of mug under his foot. The blade hooked towards Lipton's neck. He jumped back to avoid it, dodging left and right to escape the following swipes that nearly cleaved off his arms. Disabled beggars weren't supposed to be that fast. Feeling a rhythm, Lipton struck back with his baton and wacked the knife out of Zach's hands. It flipped across the room, leaving an even faster and more powerful fist behind. Lipton barely managed to put up a block before the blow connected. It hit harder than a hitmonchan, throwing him across the room. Lipton bounced against a cabinet and stumbled sideways, narrowly avoiding another punch as it whistled by. The madman was even more powerful than he was quick.

Lipton swung his baton out in front of him to force some distance between them. Zach reared back, ducked down, and pounced underneath the sergeant's second swing. He tackled Lipton around the waist, knocking them both into the dresser. Several items on the top rattled to the ground. Lipton slapped electricity across Zach's back. Sparks jumped off of the trench coat faster than a rebound. They were just as useless as the stunner. Damn.

Zach drove a fist into Lipton's abdomen, effectively bending him in half with a gag. A left to the face lowered him even further. Electricity transferred between the two, zapping the surprise right off of Lipton's face. It had to be the residual energy from the baton. The devil was using his own weapons against him. Lipton went down and dropped the baton, but what he lacked in brute strength, he made up for in technique. A swift well placed kick swept Zach's legs out from underneath him. He crashed to the floor which opened up a path across the room to the door.

Seeing his chance for that desperately needed distance, Lipton half crawled, half jumped, over the cursing obstruction into the middle of the room. When he found his balance, he touched his stomach with a wince. Had the blow been any higher it might have fractured a few ribs.

"That's right. Run, you bastard!" Zach shouted after the sergeant. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and threw up a grin so foul that it pinched his eyes into those of a demon. "Run so I can catch you!"

"Fuck you!" Lipton hoarsely shouted back.

Zach charged with another roar. Lipton matched his rage and caught the juggernaut in the chest. Zach lifted the sergeant with surprising ease and carried him across the room into the opposing wall. They crashed through the first layer of sheetrock in a puff of white plaster. Zach tried to free his arms from around his captive's waist and Lipton hastened the process by dropping an elbow into the back of his head. The trick worked.

Zach pulled out of the wall and Lipton fell backwards into the slot between two wooden beams. Blocked on all sides but one, Lipton sat up straight into the fist that was waiting for him. Blood splattered across the woodwork. There was a burst of light and a rush of color. Then, nothing as Lipton blacked out for several seconds. His head rolled down onto his chest. It snapped up again as Zach grabbed the sergeant by the shirt, pulled him out of the wall, and threw his checkers across the floor.

Lipton rolled to a stop on his stomach and placed the flat of his hand against the floor boards. They held him up as the world spun back into focus. He looked down at the carpet, unable to discern if it had always been that red or if that much blood was pouring out of his face. Considering he couldn't breathe through his nose, it was probably the latter. Something heavy vibrated through the floor towards him. It felt like heavy footsteps. Step. Pause. Step.

Two large hands grabbed Lipton by the vest and flipped him onto his back. They then clamped around his neck, squeezing with the intent to strangle. Lipton knew better than to think he could break the killer's hold. If there was one thing that morgue full of corpses taught him, it was that only a monster could kill another monster. The moment Zach latched onto the sergeant's neck, Lipton reached down and ripped the classic ball off of his belt. He smashed it against the side of Zach's face, popping the release. Hot red energy burst across the pair, spraying Zach with lava like plasma. He recoiled from the heat and freed his prisoner. Lipton gagged and gasped for air, but the nearby oxygen was burnt up as Apollo materialized immediately above him.

The arcanine blazed with the fury of yet another unexpected and unpleasant release, but being as big as he was, a paw unintentionally landed on Lipton's chest in the materialization. It caused him to grunt and double over. Immediately recognizing the sensation, Apollo jumped backwards. He hit the wall and flinched again, displacing the bed and snapping the bathroom door off of its hinges.

Across the room on the recoil of the canine's sudden manifestation, Zach braced his back against the kitchen table and bared his teeth at his old adversary. Apollo looked up and matched him tooth for tooth, snarling with the quivering lips of a long overdue bite. The heat of the canine's appearance distorted Zach's features, making him nothing more than a shadowy mirage, but Apollo recognized that rancid odor instantly. He'd been chasing it ever since the attack on the police station, but the constant tide of rain never failed to whisk away the trail. For weeks, they played this revolving game of hide and seek, adding and removing players with every new mutilated corpse found. The arcanine's tail and mane rippled in an invisible current of heat that quickly shriveled up any chance of a peaceful resolution.

Down below, Lipton rolled over onto his hands and knees and grabbed the fur of his pokemon's legs to hold him steady. He gingerly touched his throat. With a flattened diaphragm and crinkled windpipe, it took everything he had just to swallow a mouthful of air. Another blackout like that and he might not wake up again. Lipton blinked a few times to dispel the darkness. It retreated to the edges of his vision with the promise of a swift return. Dodging another fight night knockout was out of the question. Just standing up too fast could land him flat on his ass again. Not that Apollo would let him try.

The fire canine straddled the sergeant, insulating him from the rising temperatures in the room. The arcanine never once looked away from the pantherian shaped shadow glowering at him from across the room. That devil. She thought she could win their game by cheating. No honest pokemon ever attacked the trainer first. Apollo refused to abide by her rules any longer. There was too much at stake. He laid down on top of Lipton, howled out a flamethrower, and set the whole playbook on fire. The cheap wood and synthetic fibers of the unit carried the flames faster than gasoline up the walls and onto the ceiling. They spread with ravenous ferocity, devouring the insulation like tinder. By the time the arcanine closed his mouth, the whole apartment was burning better than the belly of hell.

The heat and smoke triggered the fire alarm, but it couldn't be heard over the roaring inferno. Whatever water came out of the sprinkler heads instantly vaporized the moment it encountered Apollo's wrath. Pressure built within the old pipes and they burst, venting scalding steam into surrounding units. Feeling the pressure of the flames expand from blow torch to full body combustion, Zach threw back the protective cover of his trench coat and uncurled from his defensive huddle.

Flame retardant, but not inflammable, his pants and coat were starting to catch on fire from the surrounding flames. They gnawed holes through his clothing, singeing his skin with the promise of a slow and agonizing death. Desperate for relief, Zach swam through the red ocean towards the open window. He tore through the shriveling plastic curtain and crawled out onto the fire escape. Thick brown smoke belched out from the window after him. It rose through the rain towards the sky in volcanic proportions.

Back inside, Apollo stood up and, using Lipton's armored vest like a layer of loose skin, picked up his trainer like a puppy. He ferried the sergeant across the room to the door only to realize that he couldn't fit through the frame. With a whine, the arcanine glanced behind him at the window, but that portal was even smaller than the first. Apollo danced in place. He may be fireproof, but his trainer wasn't, and dangling him over a spit wasn't much better than dragging him through the coals. They needed to escape before the whole floor collapsed. Apollo turned to the hole in the wall and back kicked the carbonizing structure. Collateral damage didn't mean anything when the whole apartment was doomed. Burning shrapnel exploded out into the corridor as he barreled through the flaming splinters into the corridor.

Apollo raced to the opening of the stairwell, bumped into the opposing wall and jumped down the flight of stairs to the next level. Lipton grabbed armfuls of fur to keep from bouncing wildly from side to side as they descended. The stairwell threatened to collapse every time the canine's paws hit the landing and the evacuating tenants unfortunate enough to get in his way were shoved down the steps or thrown against the wall at his passing. No one's life was more important than his trainers. The tenants already on the ground floor prostrated themselves against the walls to avoid the pokemon and trainer pair as they whizzed by with flames still trailing from their bodies.

Anticipating an exit even rougher than the ride, Lipton curled up as tight as he could as Apollo smashed through the double glass doors of the front entrance. He cleared the steps, sidewalk, and street in one leap, landing near the gutter on the opposite side of the building to the clink and clatter of shattered glass. Some of the stitching in Lipton's vest snapped, jarring him out of his huddle into a flailing dangle. Apollo quickly set his trainer on the ground before a foot found its way to his face. Grazing the concrete helped Lipton orient himself. He braced all four limbs before climbing to his feet with the assistance of his canine's prodding muzzle.

A dozen small cuts from the glass peppered the sergeant's face, but a few comforting licks cleaned off the blood. They also smashed his broken nose from side to side. Lipton ended the treatment with a stiff arm into the canine's muzzle before he lost his naval cavity completely. The pain from the injury blurred his vision, but the perilous screaming coming from across the street demanded more attention.

Dozens of fingers pointed up at the columns of smoke curling out from the top half of the South City Brownstones. At this rate, the whole building would be engulfed within the hour. People continued to pour out onto the street from the hole in the front entrance and surrounding buildings. Those with burns and sweating faces were unmistakably from the complex. Only after reaching safety did they start shouting for the ones they left behind. Throw in some wailing fire engines and the hysteria would really build, but Lipton wasn't a firefighter and he wasn't going to reprimand his partner pokemon for saving his life.

They were both police officers, and although the disaster was of their making, there was nothing they could do about it. The casualties today were just more tacks on the wall in the conference room to the task force. Blanchard had been sure to buy the surplus box. But he could finish what they started.

Lipton hobbled across the road, coughing out as much smoke as he could without losing a lung or passing out from the lack of oxygen. The cold rain helped soothe his burns and overheated body, but nothing would satisfy him until this madman was caught. Capturing the criminal was the only way to end the chaos. Apollo quickly fell into step beside his trainer and the crowd steered clear of the pair, especially when they realized the two were headed for the burning building instead of away from it. They'd accost his uniform and partner pokemon later when their livelihoods weren't at stake.

Lipton glanced up at the burning building. If his sense of direction wasn't still damaged from his earlier facelift, this was the side of the building Annie's apartment was on. And if Apollo was as quick as his species was supposed to be, Zach wouldn't have gotten far. Another wave of irritation suddenly snatched Lipton by the throat. He staggered into the edge of the building in a coughing fit worthy of a pack a day smoker. When blood dotted his sleeve, he knew the damage was worse than he thought and tried to resist the temptation, but holding his breath only taxed his already straining respiratory system to dangerous levels. Growing light headed and dizzy, the sergeant struggled to lift up his head and hold it there to look for his madman.

Further down the street on the side of the building, a single dark mass descended the fire escape. Nothing else moved around it. The regular tenants knew better than to risk their lives on a poorly constructed death trap. It had to be him.

Zach climbed down the escape to the lowest level. The rain put out the flames on his trench coat, but his body was still so hot that it gave off steam. The ladder, frozen with rust, refused to fall all the way to the ground when he kicked it. A sturdy full-weighted hop released it, dropping both the ladder and its occupant in a screeching descent. Zach clung onto the rungs until the sudden stop at the end of the track threw him off. White clouds whipped away from his shoulders as he dropped onto the ground with an uncoordinated flop.

The fall looked as painful as it did ungraceful, but mass murderers didn't waste time on dignity or injury. Zach got up and started running down the street. At this distance and angle, his limp wasn't just apparent, but debilitating to his escape, which didn't make any sense given his speed and dexterity in the apartment. It was impossible for him to be able to fight like that with his disability.

It reminded Lipton of the gossip in the conference room and some of the material he found in Annie's research. Myths and fairy tales about people, pokemon, and a blurred distinction between the two. It was nonsense to think any of it was real. The Midtown Murder's only purpose was to live to kill another day, not bridge the worlds of people and pokemon. The fact that Annie had gone so far to bring it up was only more proof of the madness that had consumed her.

Lipton vowed to put a stop to it before any more lives were sacrificed, but with a fractured windpipe, smoke inhalation, and a giant welling blood clot shoved up his nose, he could barely breathe, let alone shout orders. He tried to anyway. Desperation compelled him to try and the raspy croak that came out of his throat almost put him on his knees. More blood glossed the lining of his lips. Anymore and the damage might become permanent, if it wasn't already. Apollo glanced back and forth between his ailing trainer and the fleeing suspect, torn between loyalty and duty. He couldn't choose which was more important under the circumstances and therefore refused to leave his trainer's side without the hot ferocity of an attack command.

The canine started dancing again. It reminded Lipton of the hand commands Annie used to use to focus the apprehension and excitement of her inexperienced partner pokemon. She liked the old ways because she believed there was a deeper connection between pokemon and trainer when there weren't any words to get in between them. It was time to test her theory.

Lipton raised the flat of his hand beside his head and bent his fingers in the gesture of a specific attack command. Apollo saw the motion and froze, eyes fixated on the pending signal. It was an order Lipton never thought he would give in his entire career, but he couldn't afford to let this one get away. He might never get the chance to catch the Midtown Murderer again.

"Kill him the old fashion way," the commissioner had said.

Lipton couldn't think of anything more primal than death by pokemon. He threw his hand down and Apollo used every ounce of his internal heat to spring into action. There wasn't a single bark or whine of doubt. Only the sudden rush of wind and splash of rain as he disappeared from Lipton's side. The flame charge whistled like a rocket down the street. Zach felt it before he heard it and whirled around, straight into the arcanine's open jaws, too slow to avoid them and too small to stop them.

With orders to catch the criminal at all costs, Apollo clamped his teeth around Zach's chest, picked him up, and carried him down the street in the distance it took for his enormous burst of speed to slow down. Sparks flew out and around the canine's mouth, causing his jaw to clench even tighter. Zach grunted, summoning more electricity so that the moment the canine slid to a halt, the friction dragged a bolt of lightning down from the sky. It struck the two to an immediate blinding stop.

The thunderbolt split more than the sound barrier as it rattled Lipton off of his feet. He fell backwards and quickly pushed himself up again, pausing to touch his head and hold back the wave of darkness that threatened to overtake him. By the time his vision cleared, his hearing was rendered all but useless by a persistent ringing in his ears. With only his eyes to guide him, Lipton staggered to his feet and drifted towards the middle of the street in search of his arcanine. He spotted the canine on the ground up ahead, stiff and shaking with a case of paralysis.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Zach limped out from behind the canine. He stumbled once, caught his balance, and swayed upright, or rather, as straight as his hunched shoulders would allow. His head lulled close to his chest which only made the fact that he was standing that much more unusual. Lipton stopped several yards away just as shocked as his canine to see the man alive. Pinpricks of blood began to seep through Zach's soiled trench coat. They marked two neat rows across his stomach and chest where Apollo's teeth had pierced him. Electricity still sparked around the madman's body in sporadic jagged bursts. Hot white and yellow strings hovered and raced around his clothes.

Lipton didn't believe it. Zach should be dead. A crunch to the torso didn't leave room for recovery. His organs should have popped like water balloons. To be able to stand after a blow like that was inhuman. Impossible. The nonsense in Annie's dusty old tomes didn't seem so nonsensical anymore. Apparently, energy attacks weren't just for pokemon anymore.

Zach sagged forward and stamped a foot down to catch himself. A hard red line ran down his chin from the corner of his mouth. He grimaced and looked up at Lipton with eyes that flashed like a predator caught by a torchlight in the dead of night. In the face of the unimaginable, pain was a welcomed reality check, so Lipton did the most painful thing possible at the moment.

"What," he spoke, "are . . . you?"

A blocky red tinted grin spread across Zach's face. He started to chuckle and the laughter grew until it ripped open the holes between his ribs. He bent over in a single spitting cough. Then, brushed the bloody spittle aside as easily as a spring sneeze.

"I'm the Midtown Murderer," Zach replied. The words weighed his smile down into a flat line. "Me and only me."

He pulled his lips back tightly.

"I killed them," he said, dropping the expression almost instantly. This time, it fell farther than before. "I killed her."

As if realizing this for the first time, Zach's lips began to quiver. He quickly put his hands over his face to hold himself up against the detrimental truth that suddenly overwhelmed him.

"I killed Baby," he cried. "My Baby."

Lipton clenched the unspoken curses between his teeth. That sorry sack of putrescence didn't deserve to mourn. He didn't deserve to grieve in whatever twisted way he did because it was his obsession that killed her. Lipton freed the remaining revolver from his side.

Zach opened his eyes and saw the glint of steel in the sergeant's hands. The weapon was a familiar sight. One that reminded him of the way it should have been now that Baby was back on his mind. A way he quickly reverted back to.

"You thief," he snarled. "You stole that."

The hard slant of his scowl cut through the tears bleeding between his fingers.

"How dare you," he growled, digging his fingernails into his face like claws. He ripped his hands away and held them out at his side, fingers wide and crooked, desperate to hold what they couldn't have.

"Give it to me!" Zach demanded. Electricity crackled and surged between the fibers of his coat with new ferocity. Lipton raised the barrel of the gun and steadied it with two hands.

"I said give it to me!" Zach screamed.

He snapped his fingers into fists, channeling the energy down his arms. The glowing vibrating strings wrapped around his knuckles, wrists, and forearms into the human manifestation of a thunder punch. Electrical energy hummed in the air. It filled the rain soaked street with a foreboding tingle of what was to come. Zach took off running again. This time, straight for Lipton.

Each step drove cracks in the pavement. Water splashed up his shins and the strength of his gait was that of an Olympic sprinter fresh from the footholds, not a haggard homeless nobody who collected trash for a living. Lipton knew it wasn't possible, and yet, Zach's steps grew faster and lighter the harder he ran. Lipton couldn't let what happened in the apartment happen again. Apollo was out of commission, he didn't have any other long range weapons, and that much electricity in one place would likely kill him. Lipton slipped his finger onto the trigger. This began with a Cofield and it would end with one.

Already aware of the threat the gun possessed, Zach triggered his countermeasure. A burst of pressure suddenly expanded from him and accelerated down the street. It hit Lipton like an invisible bubble of tar, slowing reality into a near standstill.

No longer considering Zach human, Lipton immediately recognized it as an ability usually attributed to pokemon. Zach's bloodlust was so immediately threatening that it raised Lipton's attack response to match it, triggering the paralyzing inability to choose between fight or flight. This tricked Lipton's brain into thinking the cripple was faster than he really was, when he was actually the one that was unable to comprehend what his senses were telling him.

Using the pressure to maximize the power of fear, Zach instantly became as deadly, agile, and powerful as a Pantheria Neopardius, handicap or not. The black devil had been here all along. Lipton looked her straight in the face this entire time and now she had him by the throat again. If he couldn't break the paralysis, Zach would kill him and Lipton didn't want to die. He didn't want to end up like Annie, drowning in a river of her own blood.

Visions of that night nearly swept Lipton off of his feet despite the paralysis. He saw Annie's body sprawled out across the concrete. Her smile a couple days before when she thought she could make a difference. He saw her sweat. Her pain. Everything she ever worked for ringed with coffee stains on the task force conference table. There was Blanchard and the bodies stacked up against the wall in the morgue. And who could forget the commissioner and his son, Christopher P. Cofield, and the legacy they forced him to carry in their stead.

It brought Lipton back to the training academy and the oath he swore at graduation. He remembered the way Christopher slapped him on the back their first day on the job together and said "We're gonna be partners!" with that same damn enthusiasm as his daughter. Would he have been so jubilant if he knew he'd wind up dead a couple days later because his partner couldn't pull the trigger, even back then?

Lipton squeezed the gun until he thought his fingers would break. He made a promise a long time ago. Not to Annie, her father, or grandfather, but himself, and he promised that he would never lose his nerve again when it mattered most.

With shaking hands and a bloody yell, Lipton broke through the pressure and unloaded everything he had in back to back shots. The ear splitting blaze of rage and regret ended within six seconds and the barrel of the revolver spun with the quiet whir of an empty gatling gun. Smoke drifted from the tip. It rose towards the heavens as Lipton fell to his knees. The gun slipped off of his lap.

Zach was right. He never killed anyone before, but that didn't make him any less of a murderer.