The farm was quiet when Deputy Howard pulled up. That was unusual, every time he had come by before, someone always greeted him. Usually Charlotte or Jacky, but there wasn't a soul in sight, save for a few free-ranging chickens. He put on his hat as he climbed out of his cruiser, noticing the picnic tables were all set for lunch, even though the sun was creeping its way out of the sky. Flies had descended upon the feast of fried chicken and lunch meats, plates left half-eaten for them to finish off. Very unusual. The family hated wasting food. The Deputy was no expert, but based on footprints in the dirt, it seemed they had all gotten up from lunch and headed for the barn. He followed their tracks and saw the beam that normally barred the barn door from entry was set aside, all of the locks undone. Very unusual.
He drew his sidearm and pushed the door open, the stench of blood assaulting his nostrils as he stepped inside. If it were anyone else, they'd be doubled over outside fertilizing the grass with their lunch, but not Deputy Howard. He pulled his flashlight from his belt and clicked it on, taking in the carnage with calm calculation. There were more than two-dozen bodies, all cut up, arms and legs and guts all over the place. The beam of his flashlight floated around as he scanned each corpse, and their names came to him.
Lisa and Josh were next to each other, shot in the neck and eye respectively. George looked like he fell on his knife, the tip sticking out from his back. Kurt was in a hell of a state, his legs cut off raggedly at the knees, his chest torn open, like someone broke his sternum and ripped his ribcage open. His sons were in pieces in the corner, mixed up obscenely with Darnell. He almost tripped over something and his light revealed it to be a severed head. He nudged it with the toe of his boot, turning it so he could see its face, and was a little sad to see it was Charlotte. She had always been pretty, and he loved her no-nonsense attitude. He had run into her at the auto shop earlier, and she had a hell of a lot to say about some guy named ‘Donkey,’ and based on the look he got under the hood of the old Ford, he deserved whatever he had coming. She had also mentioned some other punk, Shawn or Shane or something like that.
He scanned the room and saw nothing but familiar faces. If the two strangers had been caught up in this, they either carried it out or escaped before it was too late, but this looked like too much work for two people. Maybe they were scouts, worming their way into the family so they could catch them all at once in the barn. His light fell upon Adams’ body; it had to be Adam, no one else was that short, especially with the top half of his head missing. Said half was nearby, his top row of bloody teeth gleaming in the light. Howard leaned closer. Odd, his gold tooth is missing. Did they take it as a trophy? He shook off the thought, speculation could wait, for now he reached under Adams’ shirt and pulled out the key he wore around his neck, ripping it off with a snap of the leather strap. He shook his head at the senselessness of it all. Whoever had done this, they had done it swiftly, but that was no kind of consolation. He knew these people, and it was a shame they had all been cut short like this. His light fell upon the stone altar, the skull and bowl split clean along with it. It seemed the bowl had been full whenever that happened, and red was splattered across the stone. That would be helpful to forensics in figuring out whoever was involved, but Howard had a better way.
He crept out of the barn, making sure he hadn't stepped in any blood before sliding the door closed behind him. He didn't bother putting any of the locks back, it was better to leave it as he’d found it. He holstered his pistol as he made for the farmhouse. He wiped his feet before entering, not wanting to leave any tracks as he climbed the stairs, strolling past that weird ‘art’ Glinda liked to make on the walls toward Adams’ office. He shoved the rolling chair aside and stuck the key into a lock on the middle drawer, unlocking it and pulling it open. There was a small tablet inside, and Howard entered the password to unlock it, navigating the screen to find the only important application on the device; a GPS tag tracker. Adam had his laundry girls sew one of the tags into a garment of everyone that went through them. The app had a local map take up two thirds of the screen, the remaining third dedicated to a scrolling list of each trackers’ ID. There were twenty-nine little orange dots on the map all clustered in the barn on a satellite image of the farm, but the list had thirty tags. Howard zoomed out, first to the size of the county, then of the state, then of the Midwest with no luck on the missing tag until he had the entire country in view.
There was a lone orange dot in the northeast, and he zoomed into New York state, then New York City, then to an apartment building. He wasn't familiar with New Yorks’ districts, but it looked like the nicer part of town, the kind of place that might run two to three thousand dollars a month, maybe even upwards of five thousand. Who the hell is this, and how did they get there so fast? All of the other tags had a family members’ name attributed to them, Adam included, but not this one. The data for said tag said it had been activated around noon that day. It didn't make a lick of sense, even less than the murders themselves. He pulled out his phone and dialed the number he had memorized, the one he didn't dare save in his contacts. It rang twice, and a smooth masculine voice answered the line.
“Speak,” the voice said, and that same chill ran down Deputy Howards’ spine.
“Reporting from McClaine ranch, Forsythe county, Montana,” Howard said, sticking exclusively to the facts, “It appears Adam and his family brought in the wrong member, and all twenty-nine of them are dead in the barn. I think they were partway through a ritual around noon today; there was blood on the altar and they appeared to be mid-lunch.”
The phone was silent for a moment, not even the sound of breathing coming through. “I feared something was amiss,” the voice said, giving away no emotion, not that he ever did. “Our oracle attempted to commune with Ragnarok, and she has yet to wake up. Do you have any leads?”
Deputy Howard smirked, he was right to check the desk before calling. “Yes sir. It seems one of Adams’ trackers made its way to New York City since whatever happened here. Shall I investigate?”
He could hear the voice silently weighing his options, and was delighted to hear his answer. “Yes. Find out who was involved and report in when you have something. Do not engage until you are given further orders. Understood?”
Deputy Howard smirked even wider, his lips threatening to creep into grinning territory. “Yes sir, understood.” The line went dead, and he put away his phone. He checked the trackers location again and wrote down the address, closed and relocked the drawer, and strode out of the farmhouse with the tablet under his arm. He climbed back into his cruiser and placed the tablet in his glove box and grabbed the speaker to his radio, clearing his throat and composing himself before pressing the talk button, speaking as if he were panicked and out of breath. “Dispatch, holy shit! Deputy Howard, reporting in from McClaine ranch, I need every available unit here now! We have numerous casualties, more than twenty bodies!”
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He waited patiently for a response to crackle through the radio.
“Received, Deputy, is the shooter still active?”
The Deputy smirked, but he had trained himself to never let it carry over in his voice, maintaining that ‘panic’. “I didn't see any shooter, I think they’ve been dead for a few hours. Just get everyone here quick!” He paused for dramatic effect, then added in a pitiful whisper, “I don't wanna go back in there…”
He could almost hear dispatch shaking their head in shame, exactly the effect he’d been aiming for. “We just put the call out, you'll have the whole county out there soon, Deputy, hold tight until then.”
Deputy Howard grinned this time, there was no doubt of it. “Thank you…” He barely whispered it, saturating his voice with pitiable terror, “Thank you…” He hung the receiver back on its cradle and levelly examined himself in the rearview mirror. Deputy Howard was a good character, a real worthwhile performance, but he had run his course. This was an excellent opportunity to resign, to fall off the departments’ radar and start anew with a new face. He pulled down one of his eyelids, examining the color contacts he wore, making sure they were in place for his final performance. He ran a lock of the blonde hair between his fingertips. It was nice being blonde, but something darker might suit him better in the city.
He chuckled. He wanted to go to New York as a kid, to star in a Broadway play, to pursue fame and fortune, but that wasn't real acting. Standing on a stage was no place to play a character, for no matter how convincing your performance, your audience will always know you aren't who you portray, it was the very conceit of the medium. No, a true actor makes the world his stage, the masses his audience, and his victims the lucky few to see behind the curtain.
It was time for the Actor to head to the big city.
Sicari sat cross-legged on the floor of her motel room, her rifle disassembled on a cloth before her, her hands deftly cleaning and oiling each and every component. The last job had been a simple one, and had a simple payout to boot; she never trusted jobs that paid too well, they always came with catches, and usually ones you didn't discover until too late. Ten grand, a shot from a half-mile away to pop the tire she had inflated to one-fifty PSI the night before, and gravity did the rest, the car flying off the mountain road with the target inside. Middle of the road, that was what she learned was best to aim for, try to bite off too much and you'll only choke.
Her phone rang, the phone that only rang when there was a job. A precious few people had the number, and that few were not prone to patience. She flipped it open and put it to her ear. “What have you got?” No point beating around the bush.
There was a low chuckle on the other line, and Sicari had to bite her tongue to keep from sighing when she recognized the voice. “Straight to the point, I always liked that about you.” And I always hated your smug attitude. “I have a little problem that needs solving, a thorn pulled from my side, so to speak. Are you at your computer?”
She grunted in the affirmative, standing and moving to the bed, pulling her laptop from under the pillow. She quickly entered her password and opened her email, the encrypted one she replaced after every job. There was a single item in her inbox with no subject. She opened it, and her eyes went wide at the content of the email; a single picture of two men, one young, one older, their arms around each others’ shoulders, both smiling wide.
“Hard pass. This is well above my paygrade,” she said, already working out the best way to slip away before he sent someone after her, but the voice on the phone only laughed again.
“I dare you to check your accounts and say that again.”
Sicari froze. That was a bad sign. If he had already sent the money, he wanted the job carried out, no matter what. She logged into her offshore bank account and almost had a heart attack at the balance; over a hundred thousand dollars more than that morning. She wasn't sure how long she stared at the six-figure number before the voice spoke up again.
“That's ten percent upfront. I know you normally ask for half, but I figured the proportions would be to your satisfaction.”
Ten percent?! That meant the job would pay more than nine hundred thousand on completion. More than a million dollars total. It was too much, too big of a fish. She wanted to say no, to turn him down and send the money back. It was right on the tip of her tongue, the refusal, but when she opened her mouth, all she said was, “How do you want it done?”
That aggravating chuckle again. “However you see fit. They’ll be well protected, but I trust your judgment. As soon as I have confirmation, you'll have the rest of your pay. Any questions?”
‘Why?’ came to mind, but that was the last question an assassin should ever consider. She took a breath and closed her eyes before answering. “No sir, I’ll head for New York in the morning. I’ll keep you posted.”
One final chuckle, like nails in Sicaris’ ears. “I know you will. I know you will.” The line went dead and she flung the phone across the room, leaving a dent in the plaster from the impact. They just didn't make phones like they used to. She put her hand to her forehead with a loud smack; her greed had gotten the better of her. Again. She shook her head, there was no choice but to commit now. At least she’d finally have enough to disappear from the fallout of what she had to do, maybe find a nice spot in Tahiti or Australia, somewhere no one would ever look for her again.
All that fantasizing could wait, for now she went back to the email, studying the picture of her targets. From what she could tell, it had been taken at a charity benefit three weeks earlier, something about some endangered fern or whatever they did with their money. Doubt tugged at her gut, that fear that had hung over her all her life, that one day she would hook a fish too big to land, and this was about as big as fish get in her lake, but she had no choice to commit. Never any choices. She read the caption at the bottom of the picture, pulled straight from one of those Wall Street gazettes or whatever they were called.
“Pictured; Long time contributor to the Heathridge Foundation for Environmental Conservation, William Shale, along with his protégé and successor as owner and CEO of Frostbyte Inc., Derrek Snowe.”