With every minute that ticked by, Creed's hatred for Stan grew. In itself, that was nothing new. Stan had made his frail's life hell and that was more than enough to incur a smoldering hatred that would last for as long as he lived. This was different though. This was a bright flame that made his chest hurt with every breath.
It was because of Stan that he'd bolted out the door while she was in the shower, making his way through the woods on all fours to find Conlon at the agreed upon place, leaving the frail vulnerable for the twenty minutes he was gone. It was because of Stan that he'd returned carrying three light blue Hypnocyn tablets in a tiny plastic bag in his shirt pocket. He would only need one of the hexagonal pills, but Conlon hadn't exactly gotten it from a pharmacy. It was Stan's fault that he'd spent the day feeling the almost imperceptible weight of that package growing heavier as the time grew closer to use its contents.
It was all Stan's fault, and Stan was going to fucking pay in blood and suffering.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Kelly stood on the porch with her grandparents in a close, three-way embrace. After a few minutes, Kelly stopped struggling to hold back her tears.
"You don't have to g-go." Her grandmother's voice cracked.
"Anna-"
"She doesn't want to go! Do you?" Even in the dim light, Kelly could see the desperation in her grandmother's eyes. She envied Victor for having gotten away to the car after a few quick goodbyes.
"Granna, there's no answer to that question."
"Of course there isn't," her grandfather said.
"I can't lose you again." Her grandmother's fingers tightened on the back of Kelly's jacket.
"You're not going to lose me, Granna."
"You sound so sure of that." The old woman shook her head.
"I am sure." Kelly was sure that Victor would do everything in his power to keep her safe. The rest of the world was far more uncertain. She had almost gotten used to that.
"You know you can come back anytime." Her grandfather said. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew more about what was going on than he was willing to let on.
"I know. I'll call you tomorrow."
"From where?" Her grandmother asked quickly.
"From wherever she is." Her grandfather answered.
"So you want your only granddaughter to be a gypsy?" Her voice was getting more shrill. "What kind of life is that-"
"Anna!" His voice was sharp and commanding.
Kelly could see that her grandmother had been pushed beyond her breaking point, and without another word she turned and retreated back into the house. Kelly started to go after the older woman, but her grandfather stopped her.
"Don't."
"But-"
He shook his head. "She needs to figure this out for herself."
Kelly sighed. "I can't even say goodbye without messing it up somehow."
"That's Stan talking."
"I've been upsetting her since I got here. That's a plain fact."
"That doesn't make it your fault."
Kelly looked at him flatly. "Then what would you call it?"
"An overdue meeting with reality." He glanced over at the car. "You should go."
"I know." She hugged him and kissed his cheek. "I love you both. Tell Granna?" Just saying the words made her heart ache.
"You know I will. Be safe." Her grandfather's voice cracked and his arms tightened around her. After becoming so accustomed to reading small gestures, the meaning behind this one was clear. For a moment she stood there, holding onto him just as tight. Finally, she forced herself to take a step back.
"I will." She turned and walked quickly toward the car, brushing at her eyes as she went.
*~*~*~*~*~*
They'd been traveling in a general southwesterly direction for close to an hour. He'd expected the frail to be weepy, and for a grand total of ten minutes he'd been right. The bawling was almost a part of the plan. He'd figured that she'd cry for awhile, it would drive him fucking nuts and he'd have a good reason to force her to shut up. Now what the fuck was he gonna say? "I know you like to keep busy, so I signed you up for a drug trial. Take this." "You don't take anything stronger than Advil. Consider this a new experience." "What the fuck are you asking so many questions for? Just take the goddamn thing."
He glanced over at her. Her body was relaxed, her eyes turned toward the darkness out the window. Still, her anxiety had been steadily increasing. He glanced back at her eyes and realized they were fixed on the side mirror. There was nothing out there except-.
"They're following us, aren't they?"
Fucking frail. She was goddamn determined to make this whole thing harder for him. He looked over at her. "What the fuck makes you think that?"
She shrugged a little. "They've been behind us for over half an hour-"
"So? Might be someone who lives around here." His grip tightened on the wheel.
"The other times we've been on these little roads we hardly ever see other cars."
"Drawing on a vast well of experience there?" His voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Maybe not, but-"
"But you just figured you'd get yourself all worked up anyway."
She looked at him, her eyes direct. "Am I wrong?"
He growled. "Goddammit, did I say that?"
"No, but-"
"And if they are following us, what makes you think I don't know?"
"I didn't say-"
He could smell her anxiety spiking but it was mixed with anger. "Calm your ass down."
She turned back toward the window and let her hair fall to hide her face. This was supposed to be the easy part and he'd already fucked it up.
"Give you three guesses who's behind it." His tone was softer.
She looked over at him. The anger had faded, replaced by fear. "Granna and Grampa-"
"They're safe. Not even Conlon knows exactly where we came from and these are idiots. They didn't know where we were until I made sure they found out where we'd be and around what time we'd be there. We were far enough away that they aren't going to make the connection."
She was silent, trying to work it out. "Alright, I'm confused."
"I'll tell you, but you might need a program to follow it. Stan's into something with somebody who scares the shit out of him. Whoever this person is and whatever he's into, Stan thinks you know something about it that can hurt him. He doesn't want his partner to know that he's actively looking for you. If he hires somebody who knows what the fuck they're doing, that's going to get back to whoever the partner is."
"Why?"
He chuckled. "Because the people who do what I do and do it well, and the people who hire us on a regular basis tend to be a pretty small segment of the population. So, he hired asshole wannabes. I'm gonna put on a little show for their benefit." A little shrug. "Maybe get Stan off your ass long enough to get you out of the country for awhile. You'll be safer and I can get Stan pinned down." He took the tiny bag out of his pocket and put it in her hand. "Take one of these."
"What is it?" She moved her fingertips over the bag, trying to get a tactile sense of the contents.
"Hypnocyn."
Her fingers paused. "Isn't that a sleeping pill?"
"Yeah." Even without looking at her, he knew the expression on her face was somewhere between shock and fear. "And don't fucking look at me like that!"
Her scent became more heavily laden with fear. "Like what?"
"Like I just beat your ass for no good reason." He couldn't look at her, not even out of the corner of his eye.
"Victor-"
"We ain't gonna discuss this, frail. Take the pill." She was silent; fear was rolling off of her in viscous waves. The scent of that kind of fear usually made him hard. The scent of it on her brought a hot, painful lump to his chest. He reached out and tangled his fingers in her hair. She leaned into his hand.
"Just one?" Her voice trembled.
"Yeah."
Her hands shook, but she took one of the tablets out of the bag and took it with a swallow of water from the bottle she kept in her bag. She shifted as close to him as she dared and closed her eyes. He let his arm rest on the console close to her.
"Where out of the country?" She asked softly.
"Probably Canada to start with."
She smiled a little. "You have a house there too?" The anxiety was fading from her scent.
A little grin. "Not yet."
She opened her eyes and traced the back of his hand hesitantly. "It's not fair to you."
He captured her hand in his and shrugged a little. "I dunno, good hunting, plenty of privacy, tight little frail to fuck whenever I want, however I want. I've taken worse deals." He glanced at her and grinned.
She laughed softly and he could just make out the blush that colored her cheeks. "Victor Creed, you are a true romantic."
His grin spread, revealing pointed teeth. "Shut the fuck up."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Creed's research told him that the drug should take effect within fifteen minutes. For the frail, it took thirty. He knew because he checked the clock on the dash more times than he would have ever admitted to. As soon as she was out, he killed the headlights and made a U-turn at a wide spot in the road. He'd turned down a gravel road and then circled back and watched the car that had been following drive past him.
He grinned a little. At least something was going right. "Fucking amateurs."
He waited for ten minutes, then went back the other way, leaving the lights off until he'd gone a good five miles. There was never any sign that his pursuers had figured out that he'd doubled back, but he wasn't about to take chances at this stage of the game. Without really thinking about it, he guided the car through the maze of disused dirt roads to an abandoned farm. He pulled out his phone and dialed Conlon.
"Barn." Conlon said and ended the call.
Creed watched Conlon open one of the rickety doors, then the other. Creed drove slowly into the dimly lit structure. Conlon was already parked inside. A girl was nearly suspended by her handcuffed wrists from a rope descending from somewhere in the dark rafters. She was weakly illuminated by a couple of lanterns. Lank, dirty hair hung over her face. He got out of the car and walked over to the girl, his eyes appraising. She started to struggle and cry.
He noticed the stench first. A miasma of terror mixed with unwashed flesh, spermicide and cum surrounded her. He ignored it. The tiny denim miniskirt she was wearing was hiked up enough that he could see a ragged pair of cheap black nylon panties. Her pink tank top was streaked with dirt and stained with blood. After a single circuit, he dug clawed fingers into her dirty hair and tugged her head back. The girl was shaking, whimpering. A ball-gag was buckled around her head. Creed chuckled.
"Nice touch."
"Be prepared. Only thing I took away from my three months as a cub scout." Conlon said.
Creed began to sort through the various smells that surrounded the girl. "You fucked her?" Creed asked, he pulled the girl's hair back roughly so that he could study the contours of her face. Trails of black mascara highlighted the tracks of her tears.
Conlon shrugged, a hard grin curling the corners of his lips. "You said no tats, no piercings and natural tits. Once I had her all undressed I figured I might as well put her to good use."
Creed grinned. The height was close. The hair color was a little off, but it was similar to what the frail had looked like when he found her. This girl weighed a little less than his frail did now, but it was close enough. He took a moment to further parse out the subtleties in her scent.
"Also said I didn't want a junkie."
"I had limited time and specific criteria." He pointed at the girl and she struggled harder. A cry was muffled by the gag. "That's the best I could do."
Creed sniffed the air again. "Hasn't been using long."
"Might be seen as your way to keep her compliant."
"If it's found at all. I ain't exactly had a lot of time to research what little trick is gonna do to toxicology." The girl whimpered and started to struggle again. He twisted his hand tighter in her hair until she stopped fighting. The new angle gave him a better look at the slope of her brow and width of her cheekbones.
"The longer I look at the shape of her face, the more I think this isn't going to work." Conlon said.
Creed turned to look at the younger mutant, a hard smirk curled his lips. "You had fourteen straight up kills before you settled into protection."
Conlon's jaw tightened. "It was more than-"
"Fifteen then, your last one was a double-header, though you didn't expect it to be."
Conlon's eyes were fixed on Creed's. For a moment, the girl was forgotten. "You still hired me."
Creed shrugged. "'F it'd been for an outright kill I wouldn't have."
"Then what difference does it make if it was fourteen or fifteen or four?"
Even in the rotting wood scent of the barn and the cloud of scent the girl was pumping out, Creed could still smell a blend of anger and embarrassment coming off of Conlon. The smaller mutant's face was carefully arranged to look hard and uncaring. Creed looked back at the girl, turning her head so that the weak light caught all the different planes of her face. "I been watching people die since before your grandmother was born. Faces change, 'specially if you break certain bones long enough before so that swelling and bruising has time to set in, but not so long that the features are completely fucked up." He released the girl's hair. "Starting now would be too soon, sides, I don't want it bleeding all over my goddamn upholstery."
"And right before is too late because once the heart stops there's no more swelling." Conlon finished. Creed gave a short nod.
It took the girl the space of an adrenaline-fueled heartbeat to realize what was being discussed. When she did, she threw all of her weight into fighting the bonds that held her. There was a flow of fresh tears, fresh terror and fresh muffled screams. It sent a surge of power straight to Creed's groin and annoyed him all at once. He hit her hard in her exposed abdomen. The clear explosion of pain shocked her into silence again.
He smirked a little. "Somebody trained it at least. You sure about your new connections?"
"Sure as I can be. Once they found out my parents were CoH and I might know where to find Kelly they didn't ask too many more questions."
Creed hadn't anticipated too many problems with that part of things. Conlon was one of those mutants who could pass as human and he was, after all, going to provide 'valid' information. He let the subject drop. "There running water around here?"
"There's a well. Why?"
"Nothing of mine would ever be that fuckin' filthy." He opened the trunk and pulled the frail's shampoo out of her bag. He tossed the small bottle to Conlon. "Gimme your keys."
Conlon tossed them and dragged the girl off somewhere. Creed wasted no time in moving the luggage out of his trunk. He opened the trunk of Conlon's green Chrysler and pulled out a couple of pillows and two thick, down comforters. He lined the trunk with one of the blankets and spread one so that she'd be laying on three layers. Every action ratcheted up the tightness in his chest, so he fussed with pillows and blankets and suitcases in an effort to push it away from himself.
Finally, he couldn't put it off any longer. He opened the car door and lifted the frail out carefully. Anxiety was written in her scent, but it was the kind that invaded her dreams. He drew her closer against his chest and let out a low, rumbling purr. One small hand found its way between the buttons on his shirt, seeking contact with his skin. Even though she found only the cotton of his undershirt, her scent sweetened a moment later. Fucking frail, always making him hesitate when he didn't have the time. He slammed the car door. She never stirred.
He set her in the trunk and watched as she squirmed onto her side, searching for comfort or familiarity. Creed knew she wouldn't find either. That pissed him off. He knew the drug was supposed to induce a deep, almost unshakable sleep for at least eight hours, but he didn't want to give her more reason to fight against it. He shed his jacket and then his shirt, pulled off his undershirt and tossed it in with her. Why he did it at all was a goddamn mystery. Her senses were too feeble to pick up all the nuances of scent that he knew were present on the cotton. Still, he watched her pull the shirt to her face and inhale. Relaxation moved through her in a visible wave.
"Wh-who's that?"
He covered the sleeping girl with the free edge of the blanket. "That your business, cunt?" He turned and looked at the naked girl shivering next to Conlon. A dark purple bruise was forming where Creed had hit her earlier. Her hair dripped from the hasty scrubbing.
"Shouldn't have taken off the gag." The smaller mutant dug his fingers into the rapidly developing bruise. The girl squealed and stumbled away from him.
"'S alright." He pulled his shirt on slowly. "The more she talks, the more incentive I have to rip out her tongue before I kill her."
The girl went gray and her knees buckled. Conlon caught her before she hit the dirt floor. Might prove to be fun to have a scared little mouse to play with for awhile. He found a white turtleneck similar to the one the frail was wearing. He tossed it to Conlon. "Put this on her and get her in the car."
*~*~*~*~*~*
Creed learned a long time ago that most situations - no matter how shitty they appeared to be on the surface - could be turned to his advantage if he looked past the obvious. Obviously he didn't want Stan's asshole squad following him. He could kill them, but he knew there was an endless supply of other dumb shits waiting in the wings just itching to step in. He could evade them, but that would take time and energy and it wouldn't buy him any time to speak of. If he gave them something to look at, they probably wouldn't question what they were seeing. Most people trusted their own eyes, and in that he'd found a small but distinct advantage.
It had been a relatively simple idea to start out with. That was before he had to travel with a whiny crack whore who verbally pissed hysterical lies and overwrought sexual innuendo. "I have a kid." "You can fuck my ass." "You don't really want to do this. You look like a nice guy." "I got so turned on when you were standing there half naked." Her desperation disgusted him. The stink of it rolled off of her in thick, oily droplets that made him feel the need for several long, hot showers. Sure, she was scared too, and listening to her prattle on about not wanting to die was just going to make tearing her apart all the more satisfying. Meant the situation wasn't a total loss.
His attention was split between tossing out graphic descriptions of what he was going to do to the whore and worrying about the frail waking up. It was fucking illogical. She was human. The Hypnocyn was working so far. Even if she managed to shake it early, he'd made sure to give himself a cushion of time. When she woke up she'd be stretched out and comfortable and completely unaware that she'd been locked in a tiny, dark space, or that she had been a few short yards from a murder. He reminded himself that it was the best way. The ones following would see him kill a girl who was about the right size and right look and they'd see him continue on alone. If he knew human nature, they'd jump to the natural conclusion that the girl he killed was the one he left with.
Twenty minutes into the ride, he saw lights behind him again. Thirty minutes in, he interrupted the whore's steady stream of noise with a hard fist to the side of the head, breaking her cheekbone. For a moment, she was shocked into silence. Then a scream erupted from her.
He grasped her throat, pinning her to the seat. "Fuckin' drama queen, aren't you cunt?"
She gurgled and tried to struggle out of the cuffs that still held her hands behind her back.
"You're gonna listen and listen good. I've killed more whores than I can count. Most of the time, I do it just because it gets me off. Even if you had a fuckin' kid I wouldn't give a shit about that or anything else. To me, you're nothing but meat and the more you whine and scream and cry, the more I'm gonna make you suffer."
She croaked something, and he let go of her throat, only to take hold of either side of her jaw. Without taking his eyes off the dark road, he squeezed until the bone broke. She let out of strangled cry. Creed grinned and looked for the turnoff. That little doubling back trick might work again, but he didn't want to take chances at this stage of the game.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Murder was easy.
Humans were so fucking fragile the challenge wasn't in the kill itself. Sometimes Creed found the challenge in the chase. Sometimes it was in how much he could damage them before they gave up. Sometimes it was in how fast he could break them. It all depended on the circumstances, the mood he was in at the time, and the victim. Some of his victims thought they could play him. Appeal to some spark of empathy they thought was hidden behind professional walls. Like all prey, they were fucking clueless as to what was really going on in the predator's head.
The so-called 'profilers' liked to think they knew. Creed studied books on the subject in the same way he devoured forensics journals. The latter gave him a better idea of what kind of trace he was leaving behind. Both gave him tools he used to misdirect and mislead an investigation.
Sometimes that didn't matter. This time it did.
Conlon was still out misdirecting traffic, leaving Creed alone in the narrow ravine to consider his handiwork in private. He stared at the gutted corpse in front of him with a critical eye. Her teeth were sitting in a little pile with her hands and the piece of her intestine with an intact appendix. In all, he was relatively happy with it.
Complete destruction of the face might have made it look more like a personal thing, but he was counting on Conlon making DNA identification goddamn difficult if not impossible all together. The face would be all that was left and he needed her to be identified as the frail. Otherwise he would have gone through all this for nothing.
The overkill on the rest of her suggested a hell of a lot of rage. He hadn't been about to put his cock anywhere near that cesspool of a pussy of hers. He couldn't catch anything, but the thought of transferring something to the frail disgusted him and made him even more pissed off at the whore. His fist had made a good substitute and the scent of her bloody terror and the pitch of her screams had gotten him off anyway.
Her hold on life had been tenuous at that point, but she still managed a gurgling scream when he ripped into her soft abdomen. He hadn't been able to hold back a laugh at the shocked look on her face when he started pulling out intestine by the fucking foot. He smiled again just thinking about it. She died before he was done, but by that point he was really just taking care of the details.
He ignored the sticky blood that matted the hair on his chest and arms. His nose and ears told him that there was a small creek less than two minutes' walk away. He'd clean up when he was finished. He found two large rocks and started to crush her teeth into a fine powder. He was halfway finished when he heard a soft sound in the underbrush. He sniffed the air warily. Under the heavy scent of the whore's blood and shit, he detected Conlon.
He went back to his task. "Stop sneakin' around."
"I wasn't sneaking; I was trying to find you. It's damn dark out here."
Creed snorted derisively. "To you."
"Damn that's a mess." Conlon was putting on a good front, but Creed could see that he wasn't looking at the carcass any more than he had to. "You finished?" Conlon asked.
"Just about. How long's it gonna take you?" Creed knew Conlon's mutation allowed him to heat any liquid to boiling and beyond in seconds, including blood and other fluids in the body. He just didn't know how long it would take to accomplish that with an entire body.
Conlon shrugged. "Not sure. You're the first one who's ever asked me to use it this way before."
"Get started then."
Conlon found another rock and put it under the girl's head. He slammed her skull down onto it until he saw brain matter start to leak. Creed watched curiously.
"Vent," Conlon said.
Creed grinned. "Thought you hadn't used it that way before."
"Not strictly after the fact, no. Before...let's just say I didn't think of it and had a hell of a mess to clean up." That scent of embarrassment again.
The rock Creed was using paused in midair, and he started to laugh. "Just cook the bitch."
Almost immediately Creed started to smell something akin to roasting meat. The scent increased in intensity and before his eyes the fresh corpse began to change, to harden in a way. The swollen features changed, but if anything it made her look even more like the frail. A few minutes later, he saw Conlon's concentration shift.
"That's everything?" He asked curiously.
"Down to the marrow in her bones."
"Not bad." He crushed the last tooth and collected the particles in his hand. "I'm going to get cleaned up. Hands and part of the intestine are over there." Even though Conlon lacked experience in simple kills, he was damn good with disposal. Most protectors were. Kept the client safe and insulated from any nasty surprises later. Creed knew his meaning would be clear.
*~*~*~*~*~*
It seemed to take ages for the goon squad to pick up his trail again, but in reality it was less than half an hour. From there, it was fairly easy. Conlon would take care of making sure some of them happened across the body and then picked up his trail again. The police would be involved, but he was sure they wouldn't find anything about his identity. Even the plate numbers on his vehicle, if anyone happened to notice them, would take officials down a rabbit hole to a dead end. He didn't worry about any of those details. They'd all been tweaked and perfected on a thousand other jobs.
He worried about the frail waking up before they got to Chicago.