“Officer Jeffrey Jones,” I read.
There’s a sudden silence as the two of them stare at each other. “As in…theOfficer Jones?” breathes Liam. “The Astley police chief?”
“I guess.”
I’m unbothered as I roll a cigarette, another habit that’s helped to take the edge off my urge. One dead guy is as good as the next. A bullet in one head is as satisfying as a bullet in another.
Except when it comes toher.
“Do we get any details?” asks Dane.
Details is a privilege only afforded certain Devil Soldiers. The more dead bodies you accumulate, the higher your rank. The higher your rank, the more details you get, and the easier the kills are.
Well, they’ve always been easy for me. But sometimes it can get a bit disconcerting when the victim starts begging for mercy, blathering stupid shit that makes no sense. If you have details, you can go in already steeled from their protests.
I read the scribbled inscription below Officer Jones’ name.
Loose end in the Day case.
Oh.
“Well?” prompts Dane.
I repeat the words in a quiet, slow voice. The two of them stare at each other uncomfortably. I guess they know by now what happens when I so much as hear her name on either of their tongues.
I go fucking ballistics.
Even a contract tangentially related to her must freak them out. They’re looking at me carefully, probably wondering what I’m going to do.
I shrug, my go-to reaction. It would take me a lot more than a last name on a piece of paper for me to give a shit. I’d have no problem slitting my own dad’s throat if his name was on a contract. I certainly won’t start caring about some chief who’s found out too much about a case related to the girl who ruined my life.
“We’ll bug him tonight,” I decide. “Stake-out tomorrow. Nextday, the kill.”
__
Officer Jones leads an astoundingly boring and predictable life.
He stays locked in his office all day, and on the cams Dane set up, I see him polish off an entire box of doughnuts while staring at naked chicks on his computer. Occasionally there’s a knock the door opens, and the receptionist—Sophie, Liam said her name was—pokes her head in to ask about some asinine thing. He quickly clicks out of the porn tab and goes back to official-looking online documents, but I don’t see why he bothers. He’s angled the computer monitor away from the door, so she wouldn’t see what he was up to unless she literally crossed the room and stationed herself behind him. Which would take at least thirty seconds, and give him ample time to close the tab.
But he strikes me as a jittery kind of guy. A very easy kill.
Way too easy. The amount on the contract—325 grand, which we always share in three equal parts, even though I’m the one who shoots—had led to my hoping that the kill would be a little harder. A little more rewarding.
Nothing worse than being stuck in a career that doesn’t challenge you, Mom said to me once before she abandoned me when I was in first grade.
Now, we’re sitting in the office we set up in my apartment, watching a guy as he watches porn.
This room is where we spend most of our time during our stake-outs, staring at the live feeds on the computer screens. This room is also where we house all our soldier stuff.
Camo pants, combat boots, leather jackets, gloves, AK47s,white blank masks. All of it sayssoldierto those in the know. To those who aren’t in the know, I guess we just look like terrifying apparitions. The last thing a person sees before he dies.
Every inch of our skin has to be covered. That’s the rule. The boots are a specific type, and local law enforcement know better than to keep looking when they see the Devil footprint. Snoop and you’re dead.
Vaguely I wonder, as I watch Jones unzip his fly and start jerking himself off nervously while glancing around the room, what exactly he’s done to piss off Devil. What kind of a loose end is he? How exactly does he represent a threat?
It’s weird for me to even be having these thoughts. It’s been pummelled into my brain since high school that as a Devil soldier, you do not ask questions.
You simply Destroy. Obey. Kill.
