Red Lady
S i x
-6-
Eden
With each step I took, I could feel the shock going through every part of my body. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears and it seemed that every breath I took was deeper than it should have been. I was always like this before a kill; every little thing became sharper to my senses. Instead of being nervous, I guess this was my alternative.
I had a large gym bag thrown over my shoulder, which held the pieces of Maria inside. As to not stick out as much with the bag, I clad myself in an exercise outfit, black sweatpants and sweatshirt, with dark tennis shoes. In New York, it would have been easier to fool people about my motives, but this was Washington, and I had to be extremely careful.
When I reached the place that would be my set up for the kill, I looked both ways, making sure that no one was paying too close attention to me. Then I turned down the alley and disappeared from the walking crowd. It only took a minute to spot the old fire escape ladder that Avian had informed me about. I took a large breath, pushing the bag on my back and started to climb.
When I got on the roof, I wiped the rust off of my hands before heading to the west corner. I looked at the building where Montgomery was to emerge from, making sure that I could easily get my target. I would only have one shot. I looked down at the watch I had on my left wrist, the digital numbers reading 12:23.
I assembled the M95, like I had many times before. The polished metal felt ever so familiar under my fingertips as I made the gun whole. I positioned it so that it sat perfectly on the roof wall, putting my eye against the scope as I waited for my man to come out.
----------
Dominic
“Are you sure you don’t want us coming with you? I mean, we don’t take as long as you to get ready, you’d just have to wait for a moment.”
Su laughed and gave her boyfriend and me a smile. “I’m perfectly capable to go out and get some coffee by myself; I don’t need you men as my body guards.”
“We just don’t like the thought of you going out alone, the world’s a dangerous place out there,” Kris said, his instinctive protectiveness coming out. Su smiled, leaned into him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Yuck, they could at least do that when I wasn’t standing right here.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so, don’t wait up. Get some guy bonding time or something,” my sister suggested as she left the hotel room, the door clicking behind her.
“So, what are we supposed to do now?”
“Hey, how about you brief me about that job you said you were on,” Kris recommended, sitting in the living room like area of our nice hotel.
“Eh, why not, it’d not like it’s a secret. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it on the news at all.”
“I’ve just been so busy lately I haven’t even had enough time to even catch up on the news of my own home country. So, you said that you have some idea of who this killer is?”
I nodded my head. “When we got to the scene of the first body, I found the bullet used on him a couple blocks away from the crime scene. We took it back with us, and once it was cleaned off, there were carvings in it. The initials ‘RL’.”
“The Red Lady?” Kris asked his eyes slightly wider.
“Am I the only one who didn’t know who that was?”
“Well, I heard of her through a bunch of reports, she has a lot of head counts on her records.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I murmured.
“Who was the man she killed?”
“This man named Benjamin Blue. I’m pretty sure everyone knows who he is.”
Kris shook his head in a positive. “He used to be one of the best, then he just went crazy in the head. Dropped off our radar, but it was known that he went off to Ireland. To do what, I don’t know. Who was her next target?”
“A man named Wesley O’Neil.”
“Hang on a second,” Kris said, seeming like something in his brain just clicked, “Those two knew each other.”
“How do you know that?”
“Hand me my laptop as I explain.”
I stood up, grabbing his laptop that was sitting on the bed, and handing it to him. He opened it up and started clicking and typing quickly.
“I have this friend who lives in Ireland, and he kind of gives me information we need when my higher ups ask for it, and I remember him telling me something about those two. Now if I can just- there we go!”
He moved the laptop so that we could both see the screen and at first it was just a dimly lit room that we saw. Soon, though, a man in his late twenties moved in, his face taking up about half the screen.
“What do you need me for Kris? I was just about to go out.”
“Then I caught you at a good time Charles. This here is my friend Dominic. He was talking to me about this killer that’s been going around killing men and the two men he mentioned reminded me of something you said.”
“Who are they?” he asked, swiping his brown locks from his face.
“Benjamin Blue and Wesley O’Neil.”
“From Johnson’s Academy?”
“What is that?” I asked, looking at the younger man seriously. Could this really be a break in our case?
“I don’t know if I’m really warranted to tell this, I mean, I could get in serious trouble.”
“Please, this could be helping out our government big time; I think they’d even owe you a favor.”
The man seemed to think about it for a minute before he spilled the secret. “The Johnson Academy was disguised as this boarding school where parents could drop off troubled kids and when they turned 18, they came back out and just seemed like perfect, obedient angels. But the real thing is that this was a school put together by our government to train assassins that they could use in warfare.”
“What? And they never told anyone?”
“It only lasted for the first generation of its students, that’s when the government stopped supporting it anyway. It was said that the twelve founders continued funding the school with their own money, to have these children under their rule.”
“And the two men were apart of those twelve?” Kris questioned, with his head nodding in response.
“Does the name Eden Hayes ring a bell?”
“Eden, what does she have to do with this?” Charles asked, squinting his eyes at me.
“She killed Blue and O’Neil.”
He sat there for a second, completely quiet, before he shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t really blame her, I think everyone knows she was going to do it one day.”
“Was she part of that school?”
“A part of it? She was the main reason they kept the damn school open. They saw her talents and changed her. When she graduated, she was known as the best. Things haven’t changed in all these years.”
Now I turned to Kris. “Do you think that she’s going after all the founders of the school?”
“What do you think Charles?”
“It’s a possibility. But with these two murders, it’s more than likely.”
“Now we have to figure out where she’s going to strike next. She was just in New York.”
“Hold on, let me check something.”
Kris and I only sat there for a few minutes as Charles typed away on his computer. “The closest living founder is in… oh dear.”
“Where is he?”
“Albert Montgomery, location: Washington D.C.”
As if on Charles’ cue, we all heard a fire shot, and the faint sound of people screaming. “Thanks Charles, we have to go!”
------
Eden
Once again, I looked down at my watch, aggravated that it was now 12:45 and I hadn’t seen Montgomery.
“Good job, you probably missed him,” I growled at myself, putting my eye to the scope and closing in on the entrance. When I did, I smiled at what I saw.
“Well hello there sir,” I voiced as I saw Albert talking on his cell phone. He seemed quiet angry, and maybe a little frightened?
His head turned left and right, as if he was looking for someone, the boogeyman jumping out of the shadows perhaps. It only took me a second to realize what he was so worried about.
“Oh Montgomery, you’ve heard have you? Your friends O’Neil and Blue are dead and you know that your time is coming soon.”
As it had been in New York, the man I was hunting was waiting for a safe time to cross the busy and traffic infested streets of D.C. I carefully locked my scope onto my target, about to pull the trigger and send a bullet through his chest…
“Are you kidding me?!” I shouted when the shot was blocked by a woman who stood in his way. Her brown eyes were looking around at all the buildings, trying to keep her dark hair in its place with a coffee cup in her hand.
I bit my lip in thought, looking at the woman, then back at Montgomery. This was pretty much a perfect shot, if he went on the move again, I couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to hit him. I was never that good at hitting moving targets, especially from such a long distance. There weren’t any second chances, not with this gun.
What if I killed the woman though? She was just an innocent bystander; she wasn’t the person I had a grudge against. But she was in my way. Montgomery was standing to just the right of her, his chest was right behind her right shoulder.
I only had a few more seconds left to decide what I was going to do, and I just made my choice. I aimed through the young woman’s shoulder, and then pulled the trigger.
I watched with empty eyes as they both hit the ground. My man was dead, that was for sure. Maybe I hadn’t hit anything vital, and if the paramedics got here quick enough, she’d be okay. Maybe.
I let out a large sigh then stood up from my position, looking down at the scene I had caused. Yeah, that turned out to be a bad Idea. I heard angry shouts from below me, and I looked downward to see the security men from the building point up towards me and shout something. After that, they started to run to my building.
“Shit!” I yelled, panicking. I looked down at Maria and cursed once again. If I wanted to get out of here without getting caught, there wasn’t going to be enough time to take her with me.
I ran towards the ladder I had previously climbed up from, and looked down. No one had arrived yet, so I put my body over the edge. Pulling my sleeves down farther over my hands, I gripped the handles on each side of me and slid down the tall building.
With all the momentum, I wasn’t able to land on my feet, instead planting my ass on the ground. I only let out a groan before running farther into the alley, and hopefully away from the men that were following me.
I turned the right corner, and to my displeasure, saw police officers sprinting at me. When I went to turn back around, I could already hear the shouts of others coming behind me. Again, I cursed, putting my hands up in the air. I knew when it was time to give up.
Eden
With each step I took, I could feel the shock going through every part of my body. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears and it seemed that every breath I took was deeper than it should have been. I was always like this before a kill; every little thing became sharper to my senses. Instead of being nervous, I guess this was my alternative.
I had a large gym bag thrown over my shoulder, which held the pieces of Maria inside. As to not stick out as much with the bag, I clad myself in an exercise outfit, black sweatpants and sweatshirt, with dark tennis shoes. In New York, it would have been easier to fool people about my motives, but this was Washington, and I had to be extremely careful.
When I reached the place that would be my set up for the kill, I looked both ways, making sure that no one was paying too close attention to me. Then I turned down the alley and disappeared from the walking crowd. It only took a minute to spot the old fire escape ladder that Avian had informed me about. I took a large breath, pushing the bag on my back and started to climb.
When I got on the roof, I wiped the rust off of my hands before heading to the west corner. I looked at the building where Montgomery was to emerge from, making sure that I could easily get my target. I would only have one shot. I looked down at the watch I had on my left wrist, the digital numbers reading 12:23.
I assembled the M95, like I had many times before. The polished metal felt ever so familiar under my fingertips as I made the gun whole. I positioned it so that it sat perfectly on the roof wall, putting my eye against the scope as I waited for my man to come out.
----------
Dominic
“Are you sure you don’t want us coming with you? I mean, we don’t take as long as you to get ready, you’d just have to wait for a moment.”
Su laughed and gave her boyfriend and me a smile. “I’m perfectly capable to go out and get some coffee by myself; I don’t need you men as my body guards.”
“We just don’t like the thought of you going out alone, the world’s a dangerous place out there,” Kris said, his instinctive protectiveness coming out. Su smiled, leaned into him and gave him a quick peck on the lips. Yuck, they could at least do that when I wasn’t standing right here.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so, don’t wait up. Get some guy bonding time or something,” my sister suggested as she left the hotel room, the door clicking behind her.
“So, what are we supposed to do now?”
“Hey, how about you brief me about that job you said you were on,” Kris recommended, sitting in the living room like area of our nice hotel.
“Eh, why not, it’d not like it’s a secret. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it on the news at all.”
“I’ve just been so busy lately I haven’t even had enough time to even catch up on the news of my own home country. So, you said that you have some idea of who this killer is?”
I nodded my head. “When we got to the scene of the first body, I found the bullet used on him a couple blocks away from the crime scene. We took it back with us, and once it was cleaned off, there were carvings in it. The initials ‘RL’.”
“The Red Lady?” Kris asked his eyes slightly wider.
“Am I the only one who didn’t know who that was?”
“Well, I heard of her through a bunch of reports, she has a lot of head counts on her records.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” I murmured.
“Who was the man she killed?”
“This man named Benjamin Blue. I’m pretty sure everyone knows who he is.”
Kris shook his head in a positive. “He used to be one of the best, then he just went crazy in the head. Dropped off our radar, but it was known that he went off to Ireland. To do what, I don’t know. Who was her next target?”
“A man named Wesley O’Neil.”
“Hang on a second,” Kris said, seeming like something in his brain just clicked, “Those two knew each other.”
“How do you know that?”
“Hand me my laptop as I explain.”
I stood up, grabbing his laptop that was sitting on the bed, and handing it to him. He opened it up and started clicking and typing quickly.
“I have this friend who lives in Ireland, and he kind of gives me information we need when my higher ups ask for it, and I remember him telling me something about those two. Now if I can just- there we go!”
He moved the laptop so that we could both see the screen and at first it was just a dimly lit room that we saw. Soon, though, a man in his late twenties moved in, his face taking up about half the screen.
“What do you need me for Kris? I was just about to go out.”
“Then I caught you at a good time Charles. This here is my friend Dominic. He was talking to me about this killer that’s been going around killing men and the two men he mentioned reminded me of something you said.”
“Who are they?” he asked, swiping his brown locks from his face.
“Benjamin Blue and Wesley O’Neil.”
“From Johnson’s Academy?”
“What is that?” I asked, looking at the younger man seriously. Could this really be a break in our case?
“I don’t know if I’m really warranted to tell this, I mean, I could get in serious trouble.”
“Please, this could be helping out our government big time; I think they’d even owe you a favor.”
The man seemed to think about it for a minute before he spilled the secret. “The Johnson Academy was disguised as this boarding school where parents could drop off troubled kids and when they turned 18, they came back out and just seemed like perfect, obedient angels. But the real thing is that this was a school put together by our government to train assassins that they could use in warfare.”
“What? And they never told anyone?”
“It only lasted for the first generation of its students, that’s when the government stopped supporting it anyway. It was said that the twelve founders continued funding the school with their own money, to have these children under their rule.”
“And the two men were apart of those twelve?” Kris questioned, with his head nodding in response.
“Does the name Eden Hayes ring a bell?”
“Eden, what does she have to do with this?” Charles asked, squinting his eyes at me.
“She killed Blue and O’Neil.”
He sat there for a second, completely quiet, before he shrugged his shoulders. “Can’t really blame her, I think everyone knows she was going to do it one day.”
“Was she part of that school?”
“A part of it? She was the main reason they kept the damn school open. They saw her talents and changed her. When she graduated, she was known as the best. Things haven’t changed in all these years.”
Now I turned to Kris. “Do you think that she’s going after all the founders of the school?”
“What do you think Charles?”
“It’s a possibility. But with these two murders, it’s more than likely.”
“Now we have to figure out where she’s going to strike next. She was just in New York.”
“Hold on, let me check something.”
Kris and I only sat there for a few minutes as Charles typed away on his computer. “The closest living founder is in… oh dear.”
“Where is he?”
“Albert Montgomery, location: Washington D.C.”
As if on Charles’ cue, we all heard a fire shot, and the faint sound of people screaming. “Thanks Charles, we have to go!”
------
Eden
Once again, I looked down at my watch, aggravated that it was now 12:45 and I hadn’t seen Montgomery.
“Good job, you probably missed him,” I growled at myself, putting my eye to the scope and closing in on the entrance. When I did, I smiled at what I saw.
“Well hello there sir,” I voiced as I saw Albert talking on his cell phone. He seemed quiet angry, and maybe a little frightened?
His head turned left and right, as if he was looking for someone, the boogeyman jumping out of the shadows perhaps. It only took me a second to realize what he was so worried about.
“Oh Montgomery, you’ve heard have you? Your friends O’Neil and Blue are dead and you know that your time is coming soon.”
As it had been in New York, the man I was hunting was waiting for a safe time to cross the busy and traffic infested streets of D.C. I carefully locked my scope onto my target, about to pull the trigger and send a bullet through his chest…
“Are you kidding me?!” I shouted when the shot was blocked by a woman who stood in his way. Her brown eyes were looking around at all the buildings, trying to keep her dark hair in its place with a coffee cup in her hand.
I bit my lip in thought, looking at the woman, then back at Montgomery. This was pretty much a perfect shot, if he went on the move again, I couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to hit him. I was never that good at hitting moving targets, especially from such a long distance. There weren’t any second chances, not with this gun.
What if I killed the woman though? She was just an innocent bystander; she wasn’t the person I had a grudge against. But she was in my way. Montgomery was standing to just the right of her, his chest was right behind her right shoulder.
I only had a few more seconds left to decide what I was going to do, and I just made my choice. I aimed through the young woman’s shoulder, and then pulled the trigger.
I watched with empty eyes as they both hit the ground. My man was dead, that was for sure. Maybe I hadn’t hit anything vital, and if the paramedics got here quick enough, she’d be okay. Maybe.
I let out a large sigh then stood up from my position, looking down at the scene I had caused. Yeah, that turned out to be a bad Idea. I heard angry shouts from below me, and I looked downward to see the security men from the building point up towards me and shout something. After that, they started to run to my building.
“Shit!” I yelled, panicking. I looked down at Maria and cursed once again. If I wanted to get out of here without getting caught, there wasn’t going to be enough time to take her with me.
I ran towards the ladder I had previously climbed up from, and looked down. No one had arrived yet, so I put my body over the edge. Pulling my sleeves down farther over my hands, I gripped the handles on each side of me and slid down the tall building.
With all the momentum, I wasn’t able to land on my feet, instead planting my ass on the ground. I only let out a groan before running farther into the alley, and hopefully away from the men that were following me.
I turned the right corner, and to my displeasure, saw police officers sprinting at me. When I went to turn back around, I could already hear the shouts of others coming behind me. Again, I cursed, putting my hands up in the air. I knew when it was time to give up.