Mostly Murder (22 page)

For a long time after his little playmates escaped, Malice had to lie low and be very careful. The search for the two children was still going strong, so the fun and games inside the cellar with new kids ground to a halt. He had been forced to kill his true love's little girl, even though he hadn't really wanted to, so he didn't have to worry about her bringing the law down on him anymore.

Unfortunately, and despite the fact that he'd tracked down the boy out in the swamp and practically beaten him to death and dumped him in the sluggish water for the gators, the kid had survived, thanks to some duck hunters who'd happened by and found him muddy and bleeding where he'd somehow crawled out and collapsed on the bank. That pretty much scared the hell out of Malice. As it turned out, however, the boy's head injuries had affected his memory, and he couldn't identify his kidnapper or lead the cops back to the house, so all was well. Finally, after months and months, the notorious case faded unsolved and forgotten and went cold. He felt safe to strike again.

He did manage to obtain a couple of sanctioned hits when his assassin friend was tied up with his own out-of-town kills. One assignment he got was in Muncie, Indiana, where he just ran a guy off a deserted road and then shot him in the head and chest while he was slumped unconscious in the front seat of his truck. Then he doused the body and vehicle in gasoline and burned it unrecognizable. Malice got paid some big bucks for that one.

The other hit was down in south Florida around Naples, where he just shot the guy point blank right in his own backyard when the man went outside before bed to have a smoke. Both murders were quick and simple, which really wasn't Malice's style, but he guessed he couldn't have everything he wanted all the time.

So, the years passed, with a steady stream of hit jobs assigned to him. The payments were large. It was a lucrative profession indeed, and gave him the ability to buy anything he wanted. Then, one day he got an assignment in his home state. After he murdered the parents in their bed with his silenced .45, he found two ten-year-old girls sleeping just down the hall, all alone and defenseless and ripe for the picking. He just couldn't help himself. He really, really wanted them so he woke them roughly at gunpoint, and the two girls were so scared that they just fell on their knees at the side of the bed and waited, trembling and shaking and praying. He tied them up and taped their mouths and told them he would kill them if they made a single peep but would let them go if they cooperated and did exactly what he said.

That was a lie, of course. He had no intention of letting them go. They were going straight into his maze out in the swamp, as its very first victims. This time nobody was around to see him take them out to where he'd hidden his boat. He could make it to the maze quickly and easily with them bound and gagged and blindfolded in the bottom of his boat, an old moldy tarp spread over them.

But first, he decided to mark them as the property of Papa Damballah. So, he took them to the edge of the bayou and then he got out his battery-operated inker and climbed into the back of his van with them. He quickly drew his Veve on the inside of their wrists. They lay paralyzed the whole time, especially the smaller one. She was so scared that she wet her pants. The other girl moaned when the needle pierced her skin but did not move a muscle. After he was done and satisfied with his artwork, which was rather good, he carried one girl under each arm and dumped them into his boat.

Halfway to the maze, he decided to stop at the old voodoo altar on Skull Island, as he had recently christened it, mainly because it was spooky there at night with all the creepy moss hanging almost to the ground and lots of human skulls scattered all over the place. So he laid the two girls out on the ground in front of the altar, put on his mask, and lit some of the candles. Then he took off their blindfolds so they could see the scary stuff all around them. He was getting aroused, thinking about how helpless they were, ready to take the prettiest one off alone and see just how brave she really was. But then he heard the buzz of an outboard headed fast in his direction. He froze where he was, hands on the frightened girl's shoulders, but he could see a light filtering through the trees, one that was affixed to a boat. He couldn't take a chance on being caught red handed, so he had no choice but to run. He took off in his boat and left the girls lying bound and gagged on the ground.

Furious at being disturbed just when things were getting good, Malice pulled his boat into a thick stand of cypress trees and shut off the motor. He floated there a moment, nervously watching to see if the boat would come in his direction. Chances were the fisherman would not see them, and he held his breath as the boat neared the voodoo ritual island. But the guy did see them, apparently drawn closer by the candle flames. Cursing to himself, Malice watched the man pull up to the bank near the altar, and then jump out and run to help the girls. Malice could hear them screaming and screaming when the fisherman pulled the tape off their mouths, the sound echoing for miles out over the bayous.

And then he sat there, absolutely terrified, too afraid to even move. If the fisherman decided to look for him, there was no way he could get away fast enough. He lifted the shotgun carefully out of the bottom of the boat, not wanting to kill the man, or the girls, not out in the open like this, but he was ready to, if it came to that. But Papa Damballah was with him again, protecting him from harm, because the man just got the two hysterical girls into his boat and took off toward town, probably pretty damn spooked himself.

After that, Malice waited a long time, just in case they circled back, and then he finally started up his boat and headed out in the opposite direction. He needed to put space between himself and that island. Damn it to hell, he was just getting started with those girls. He wanted them so much he could taste it. He should never have stopped there. He should've continued on out deeper into the swamp and trapped them in the maze. This time, it had been a little too close for comfort. He had gotten way overconfident, and this was the second time he'd let his victims escape. He'd better get his act together and get it together quickly, or he was going to end up in a jail cell, or lying in a death chamber with a needle stuck in his arm.