Pure Hate (30 page)

James came as soon as he heard news of the break-in hit the
air. The janitorial staff reported that someone was shooting inside the High
School for the Creative and Performing Arts. James had been halfway home when
he heard the call. It didn’t take much to figure out that it was Malcolm and
Reed, and he kicked himself in the ass for not thinking of it before. It was
the school they’d attended together with Renee’ and Natasha. It was where all
this began.

James had to go stop Malcolm despite his fear, guilt, shame,
and fatigue. If he didn’t face Malcolm, he’d have to quit the force, because
this fear would never go away. Unless he turned toward this fear, James would
forever be a victim.

A Latino woman in her forties came running out of the
building just as James pulled up. She told him there was a headless woman lying
in the hall on the fourth floor. James drew his weapon and crossed the parking
lot in a flat-out run. He was starting up the stairs when he heard the shots
coming from the basement.

He turned and crept cautiously back down the stairs, toward
the basement. The morning sun was blazing but there were still shadows, still
places for Malcolm to hide. James heard voices, a harsh pained laugh, coughing,
more voices. He pushed open the gym door in time to see Malcolm blow Reed’s
head off.

James opened fire, pumping bullets into Malcolm until all
the darkness was gone.

The stark, white, early morning sunlight crept across the
room and illuminated the brutalized bodies. Reed was a mess. His guts were
trailing out of an abdomen ripped open by the
foot-long slashes crisscrossing his torso. His head looked like a science fair
volcano with a steaming crater instead of the top of his skull. Malcolm was
bleeding from bullet holes, bites, and slashes that had turned his surrounding
tissue to tenderized meat. His chest no longer rose or fell—his last breath had
long exited his ruptured lungs. The terrible dark flame in his eyes, his
searing hatred, had winked out, and all animation had ceased. There was no need
for an ambulance. Both were beyond any resuscitation.

As the sun crept higher, James squinted against the glare,
unable to tear his eyes from these two fallen foes/friends. He still clutched
his pistol and his finger still depressed the trigger. The morning light
continued to tear large rifts in the few lingering remains of doomed night.

The horror that bled itself out on the gymnasium floor had
no place in the light. In the morning sun, it all turned easily from horror to
tragedy. Even Malcolm lost all menace and became an object of sympathy, even
empathy. James found himself wondering what this monster might have become if
not for the years of abuse dealt out by his stepfather, if not for the betrayal
of his best friend, if not for the hell he’d managed to drag them all into.

James walked out of the high school building as
it began filling up with his police brethren. They walked about so casually that
it seemed none of them were even aware of the danger that had been living,
breathing, and still killing just moments before.

Cynical teenaged artists, writers,
and musicians were lined up in the chill November air, waiting for the all
clear so that they could enter the school and resume their mild flirtation with
education. James was too beaten down to tell them that school was cancelled
that day. He walked pensively through their gauntlet of stares, ranging from
curious to disinterested to openly hostile.

One of the fashionably angst-stricken
kids, long-haired, overweight, tragically pimpled, wearing pinstriped bell
bottom pants and a new age hippie version of a dashiki, commented on how happy
he was to be missing first period class no matter who had to die to make it
happen. Yet another pale, anemic, black lipsticked, black nail-polished, black
eye-shadowed, trench coat Mafia type, yelled out, “Scrape the muthafuckin’
bodies up off the floor and let us get to class!”

James looked to see if any of the teachers
who were corralling the unruly gaggle of teens would reprimand the boy for his
language. None of them even seemed to be paying attention. They had no doubt
heard worse and had long learned to ignore it all.

None of the kids seemed the least bit
awed by the fact that their high school was now a murder scene. Growing up in
Philadelphia had accustomed them to tragedy. Every street they passed between
home and school had at one time or another been cordoned off with yellow crime
scene tape with a chalk outline drawn on the asphalt. James couldn’t help but
wonder how many of these kids had actually witnessed a murder, how many had
watched blood being hosed off a sidewalk and down the gutter, how many would
someday be murderers themselves. In fact, none seemed to be the least bit
impressed by Malcolm’s death. James could see them distancing themselves from
the horror already. The forced laughter masked a collective sigh of relief.

Last night Malcolm was the most
serious topic of discussion in Philadelphia, talked about in hushed tones, the
reason mothers didn’t let their kids stay out past dark and fathers slept with
shotguns by the beds. Today, all the pain and death and fear of the last few
days would become nothing more than bad jokes and interesting dining room
conversation.

Except for the friends and families
of Malcolm’s victims. For them, the memories would hold their terrible power
for years to come. Malcolm was a boogieman who had merely left the world of the
living to be reborn in their memories and nightmares.

As exhausted as James was, he was in
no hurry to face a rejuvenated and revitalized Malcolm Davis in his dreams. He
would much rather delay that inevitable battle and stay awake a few more hours.
He knew he would have years yet to contend with Malcolm’s ghost. James shivered
at that thought and pulled the collar up on his trench coat to shield his neck
and face from the cold air, which of course had absolutely nothing to do with
why he was shivering. He bumped into David Malcovich on his way across the
school parking lot.

“I thought you said you were off this
case.”

“I figured if another cop had to die
trying to stop this wacko, it might as well be someone worn out and expendable
like me.”

“So, tell me Detective, did you give
Malcolm a warning before you shot him? Did you identify yourself? Who shot
first?” Malcovich asked.

“You don’t know me well enough to ask
that question,” James replied, and slid behind the wheel of the Intrepid.

Agent Malcovich leaned his head
through the car window.

“I thought you’d be interested to
know that your girlfriend just got out of surgery and they think she’s going to
make it. She’s in the ICU right now.”

“Thanks, Malcovich,” James replied
and whipped the Intrepid up onto the curb as he spun it into a U-turn and
headed back to the hospital. He wondered if the curiously emotionless FBI agent
was planning to report him to IAD for violating Malcolm’s civil rights. It
sounded ridiculous, but he’d seen stranger things happen, and Malcovich was
strange.

No one would ever know whether or not
James gave Malcolm a warning before he shot. Other detectives were writing his
shooting report for him right now, and the report would say the shooting was
justified. Only James would ever know for sure. He shrugged his shoulders, deciding
that he really didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about how he handled the
shooting. The bastard deserved to die and was right where he belonged. End of
story.

James fought off his final image of
Malcolm, bloodied and dying, blowing Reed’s head apart with the nine millimeter.
Everyone on the force would give James the credit for stopping Malcolm, but James
knew that Reed had really done the killing, Reed and CC and Natasha. The
bullets from James’s gun were merely the smallest and the last contributions to
Malcolm’s death.

As he pulled into the hospital
parking lot, the image of Malcolm growling savagely as bullets smashed into his
chest played in James’s head. There had been a brief second when Malcolm had
continued to glare at him, his eyes still savagely alive, vibrant with
murderous hate, his hand still gripping the nine millimeter.

James emptied his entire clip into
Malcolm, yet Malcolm still radiated an aura of invincible menace. In that
moment, James had been once again at Malcolm’s mercy. Malcolm smiled a
horrible, blood-drenched grimace as his entire body shuddered, and then he
died, but James knew that he would never be free of that moment. It would haunt
him forever. Malcolm was immortal.

A dart of pain lanced James’s heart
as he watched CC’s battered body lying motionless in ICU. She looked even worse
than she had when he’d last seen her. It was more than a miracle that she was
still alive. A nurse checked one of the many IV drips in CC’s arm. James sat by
her side as the elderly nurse checked CC’s bandages. She acknowledged James’s
presence without taking her eyes off her patient.

“Are you her husband?”

“No. Her husband helped do this to
her. I’m the cop who killed the bastard.”

The nurse, who to James seemed ready
for her own hospital bed, looked at him with what could only be described as
horror then, when she saw the pain written in lines of stress and worry all
over his face, her expression softened into pity. A shaky, wavering smile tried
to take root on her face and failed. She turned on her heels and walked to the
door. She paused before stepping out into the hall.

“Good job, Detective.”

CC’s eyes fluttered open and focused
on James with a tentative smile. She reached out for the detective’s hand.

“Is Malcolm dead?”

“Yeah. You killed him, baby. No one
will ever hurt you again.”

She smiled and fell back to sleep,
cradling James’s fingers in her taped and bandaged hand. James closed his eyes
and found Malcolm waiting for him just beyond consciousness. He snapped awake,
breathing heavily and shaking with fear. Sweat soaked through his clothes,
adding yet more stains to the already dirty and wrinkled suit. He touched his
holster for reassurance, flipped a White Owl cigar between his lips, and began
to chew it nervously as he sat watching CC the rest of the morning. He popped a
No-Doze and asked a nurse for some coffee.

He didn’t know when he would gather
the courage to sleep.