Page 37 of Lust
Straightening, he surveyed the devastation in the street with grim defeat. Cars dented, crashed, and broken. Red blood mixing with a strange yellow liquid on the road. It had only taken a few minutes to turn fromPleasantvilleto aNightmare on Elm Street. Victims’ innards fell from their guts. Heads snapped clean off. The dead were a mix of innocents interspersed with the sea of white-robed extremists. The costumes said they were the same ones Joe had come across during his investigation of the Deadly Seven. The same terrorists the Feds kept sweeping under the rug.
And here they were again, causing more devastation.
Why was he investigating the Deadly Seven, and not them? If it wasn’t for Liza and her family, the bloodshed could have spilled into the restaurant. Into the buildings. Down the streets… all over the city.
Exasperated, Joe wiped his sweaty brow with the back of his hand and searched for Liza. She was gone. As was the rest of her family. Vanished, as though they’d never been there.
The first lot of sirens turned up. Police, followed by an ambulance. Joe jogged over and showed his ID to the first responders, then had to wait as one of them puked onto the pavement behind his car.
The driver got out of the vehicle and met Joe. “What the hell?”
He was the senior cop, had graying hair at his temples, and a little too much weight around the middle. But he wasn’t losing the contents of his stomach like the rookie who’d come with him.
“Prepare yourself,” Joe said. “It’s ugly. You’re the first to arrive. We’ll have to secure the area and alert the paramedics to any victims in need. The ones in white robes were the offenders. Anyone else takes priority. And be careful of the yellow substance. I think it’s a chemical of some sort.”
The cop nodded and went to work.
Joe’s cell rang.
“Liza?” he said into the handset.
“Director Dixon.”
“Sir. Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“It’s all over the news. What the hell is going on?”
News? Joe frowned and looked for a TV crew but found none. Then he saw the camera phones recording within the restaurant.Idiots.
Joe clicked his fingers at the cop who’d been puking. “You,” he said. “Go into the restaurant and stop the filming. Remind them that this is an active crime scene, and we’ll need their footage for the investigation.”
The cop nodded and then jogged off.
“Sorry, sir, you were saying?” Joe said.
“Was it the Deadly Seven?”
Joe balked. The director had seen the devastation on the news, and yet the first thing he asked was that? “No, sir. It wasn’t them who caused it. They’re the ones responsible for stopping the situation escalating.”
“Where are they now?”
“I have no idea. I’m knee-deep in bloody white-robed bodies.”
A muffled sound came through the handset. It sounded like the director was frustrated and had put the phone down to rub his face. When he came back, he said with slow vehemence,“You’re in town to investigate the Deadly Seven, not these offenders. Let the locals pick that up. I want you chasing down leads. I want those vigilante assholes captured. The only reason you were picked for this assignment is because of your ties to the Lazarus family. Do you understand, Luciano?”
Cold dread filled Joe. Yeah, he fucking understood. He understood that he was being used to get to the Lazarus family. He understood that if he refused, he’d probably lose his job. He understood that the Agency had its priorities wrong and Joe had to be clever about how he handled things.
The director sighed.“I get it. It’s a shit-show. But it’s not your shit-show. Homeland will be there soon to mop up.”
“Homeland?” Since when were they involved?
“The assholes who did this, they’re terrorists. That’s all you need to know. Let them do their job, and you can do yours.”
“Sir, but if it wasn’t for the—”
“Luciano!”the director snapped.“They’re vigilantes. If every Tom, Dick, and Harry thinks they can get away with taking the law into their own hands, we’ll have chaos. You know that.”
“Yes, sir.”
