The Guilty - Jason Pinter [19]
care about the headstone itself. All he cared about was the
bones that lay underneath. The body that lay buried in that
hard earth for over a century. People thought they knew the
truth. They saw movies, read books, figured they knew everything. He was here to change that. Through blood and
lead, they would know the truth, and they would know exactly
why he died. The Boy's legacy, and now he was being
baptized in the blood of the damned.
Every now and then he would bring a fresh bullet to the
grave, dig a small hole with his hands and place the ammunition inside. It's what He would have wanted--to be close
to the bullets. Up until now, those bullets were the only link
between them. Until Athena. Until that cop. Now blood linked
them, and blood was thicker than lead.
All those summers in the broiling sun, pretending to ignore
his birthright. Watching that ungodly woman tarnish their
family's name with that demon. He got through the day because he knew eventually the day would come when he could
take up the mantle. When he could finally finally finally come
out from the darkness and show the world that the throne was
his now. It had merely been waiting for the new blood to carry
it into the new century.
You'd think things would have changed in a hundred and
thirty years, the Boy would say to the headstone. He would
always say it out loud. He didn't care who heard him. If he
didn't have the courage to take a few errant glances, he wouldn't
be able to pull the trigger when the time came. You'd think
they'd have changed, but they haven't. A hundred and thirty
years and you'd be so sick of it you'd dust your guns off, brush
all that dirt off your old, old bones and do what I'm doing.
His hands and legs ached. The rifle had a mean kick. The
Boy hadn't gotten a chance to practice much with it, but the
The Guilty
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gun was every bit as true as he knew it would be. That gun
had a reputation, and not the kind that came from some pussy
who talked his own game up. This was the kind of rep that
came through force, violence and blood.
He looked around the room. Grime covered the walls, and
he could hear insects scurrying behind the plaster. Nothing
bothered him. He tapped the rifle with his fingers and thought
about the next kill.
He'd read the newspapers that morning. Read the ongoing
coverage of Athena's murder. Only today it was sparring for
coverage with the murder of Joe Mauser. He was surprised
to see that he'd killed the cop rather than the mayor. But the
more he read about this cop, the better he felt. He read how
the cop tracked down and nearly killed an innocent reporter
named Henry Parker. The same Henry Parker whose words
the Boy had used before killing Athena Paradis.
The Boy read about how the death of officer Joe Mauser's
brother-in-law had driven Mauser over the edge, how he relentlessly pursued Parker across the country before nearly
dying at the hands of the real killer. And even though the
Boy's bullet hadn't been meant for Mauser, fate was on his
side. Joe Mauser was just as guilty as the rest of them.
The Boy looked out the window at the night sky, the beauty
that was so close, and the beauty that he would help create.
Then he closed his eyes, dreamt of blood, blood that purified,
blood that seeped back into an old, old grave. He dreamt that
he was lying in the grave next to the man whose legacy he
was carrying on, and the Boy slept in peace.
10
I'd only met with a medical examiner once in my career
as a reporter, and that was back in Oregon when I covered
a B and E that turned ugly when the home owner confronted
the burglar. The home owner was stabbed twice in the chest,
the knife stolen from his own bedroom. The ME confirmed
the murder weapon was some fancy German blade, which the
victim had bought on the black market. I ended up uncovering an unauthorized dealer ring in Portland, and was subsequently nominated for a Payne journalism award. The ME in
Portland was a woman in her midforties, professional as hell,
and willing to part with any and all