Birth of a Monster (3 page)

“Or, you keep your mouth shut, and
you’ll be looking at spending the rest of your miserable life in
prison.”

“I could go ask him for a meeting . . .
if I was sure you weren’t following me. If he refused, I would
return, and you would have your quarry once again.”

The chief felt surprised when he found
himself convinced Tats was likely telling the truth, but his
response was cold and final.

“Officers! Take this scum
back to his cell. Forward his case to the prosecutor’s office first
thing . . .
tomorrow
.” He grinned at Tats when he added this last
detail.

Chapter 6

Righty was headed out of his large barn
where he now had, quite literally, multiple tons of Smokeless Green
packed and assembled into tight packages of various sizes and for
various destinations, all with their weight and addressee engraved
in code. The ranchers who assisted with this knew the codes for
each weight, and while they also engraved the various codes Righty
instructed them for each addressee, they did not have the faintest
idea as to what personage, or even what city or country, was
signified by the cryptic abbreviations.

Righty planned on doing some light
warming up with his sword before he and his men began their daily
martial exercises, and his mood was carefree and upbeat, the state
of mind humans usually experience right before stormy weather
reveals the perilous nature of happiness.

Before he got more than a dozen feet a
konulan whizzed right by his ear making an emphatic “Chirp!” before
heading straight into the barn. A feeling of doom emerged from his
soul and passed straight down his spine. He would have turned and
sprinted into the barn, but he didn’t want to alert any nearby
ranchers. He compromised with one of those rapid walks that blur
the line with jogging, and mere moments later he was inside the
barn with the door closed.

Once inside, he did not hesitate to do
a quick sprint here and there to scan for any inadvertent—or
intentional—eavesdroppers, but curiosity quickly demanded that this
exercise cease, and Righty, with sweat pouring from his forehead
and his pulse marching like a fervent army about to close with the
enemy, inquired the urgent news.

His heart sank, and he nearly felt
sick, as he discovered Tats’, Crabs’, and several others’
arrest.

“Meet me at the cabin in ten minutes,”
he told the konulan.

Righty mounted a horse tied outside the
barn and rode up to his men and told them, in what he hoped was a
calm voice, that some tedious paperwork was going to rob him of
today’s exercises and that he was not to be disturbed at his cabin
except in the case of an emergency. They, however, were to proceed
with all zeal in their exercises.

He then galloped off towards his cabin
with an alacrity that showed he either found today’s paperwork to
be of a particularly stimulating nature or that there was indeed
some calamity of which perhaps even they should be
alarmed.

Righty dismounted in front of his cabin
like a courier carrying news of an approaching enemy army, dashed
inside, slammed the door, and was relieved to find the konulan
waiting dutifully as instructed.

“Tell me every last detail! Every last
one!” Righty shouted, not with malice, but with panic. “Starting
with why only you came!” he added.

“We agreed that one can relay news as
well as four, but one cannot surveil as well as four,” the konulan
said calmly.

“Shrewd little things you are,” Righty
said, giving the konulan’s head a gentle pat.

The konulan then informed him that he
had surveilled only up until the time Tats was being led away to
the police station, but he treated every detail of what he had seen
with the most minute attention.

“Fly, little friend,” Righty said. “I
need updates! I will remain here. Tell the next messenger to fly
straight in through the chimney!”

The konulan, perhaps wishing to test
the feasibility of this route, or perhaps not noticing the open
window right behind him (which Righty himself had either forgotten
about or decided he might need to shut later to keep the
conversations private), took off like an arrow and disappeared
inside the chimney.

Righty felt his whole body tremble, for
it seemed as if all the woes of the world had descended upon his
shoulders.

Chapter 7

It was not until late that night that
the next konulan arrived. And by that time Righty felt as though he
had aged at least a year.

The konulan explained that there had
been too little to report. Tats had been processed without saying
much, and then they had lost track of him, due to the fact they
could only conduct surveillance from outside the
windows.

Harold had ordered them to spread out
around the building and listen through all windows for any mention
of the name “Tats” or even the term “Smokeless Green” so that they
could position themselves if he came near.

“You’re going to need backup,” Righty
said tersely. “Go get two dozen konulans and tell them to help
out.”

“Yes, sir,” the konulan responded and
took off.

Righty passed a sleepless night, and
although he knew Janie was going to be worried, this simply had to
take priority. He knew that he was on the verge of losing
everything he had worked so hard for in Sivingdel, and it would
only be a matter of time before Rucifus inquired about her
brother.

Sure, he could lie to her for a while,
but that wasn’t the way he preferred to do business. She’d find out
sooner or later anyway, and when she did, he would not only lose
that connection but likely acquire a bitter enemy in the process.
Surely, she would blame him for failing to rescue her
brother.

That meant having a big ranch full of a
product he couldn’t sell . . . that is, unless he wanted to start
from scratch by waltzing into some other crumby part of Sivingdel
and convincing some unknown hoodlums via a few rounds of fisticuffs
that he was someone to take seriously, and hoping he didn’t get
stabbed or clubbed to death in the process.

But there was a sentimental issue as
well. If the roles were reversed, he would hope his boss would do
everything in his power to extricate him. Tats had been loyal,
given him an unimaginably lucrative international contact, and had
saved his life in at least two nasty fights. Tats was like
family.

Somehow, some way, he was going to have
to fix this.

Chapter 8

“Word for word?” Righty
asked.

“Yes, sir,” the konulan said, having
relayed to Righty the contents of Tats’ conversation with the
police chief.

“And you’re sure he refused to give my
name, but the chief already knows my alias?”

“Yes, sir,” the konulan replied,
unwavering.

Righty’s feelings of obligation and
duty redoubled.

“Bring Harold here,” Righty
ordered.

“That won’t take long,” the konulan
said, with a smile in his voice if not on his beak. “He’s hiding in
the woods nearby. He was hoping you would want to talk to him but
was unsure if you would be angry he hadn’t continued supervising
the konulans.”

“Tell him not to worry. I need his
advice.”

Righty went ahead and opened the door
and braced for what he rightly suspected would be a rather dramatic
arrival.

Minutes later, a puff of wind nearly
knocked Righty over as Harold entered rapidly through the doorway
only to flare his wings out immediately afterwards, although he did
leave a few gouges in the wood with his claws to assist his
stop.

“One day, sooner or later, I think we
both knew it would come to this, but it never made for a pleasant
conversation now, did it?” Righty said, trying to laugh, but
nothing escaped but a light sigh.

Harold said nothing, his keen, warlike
eyes showing that he was simply ready to hear and obey.

“Should I show myself, Harold? And meet
the police chief?”

Harold simply nodded. He knew Righty
well enough by now to know Righty wasn’t going to hang Tats out to
dry.

“Could I go to the police chief’s
house? I would feel I had the upper hand that way.”

“Due to my size, I could only surveil
the konulans from about five hundred feet up without drawing
attention to myself. I asked each of them, and none of them got so
much as a glance at the chief. We don’t know what he looks like, so
there was no way we could follow him home.”

A konulan spoke up: “The chief sounded
like he meant business when he said he was going to refer the case
to the prosecutor’s office tomorrow. He also sounded serious when
he mentioned the federal police might be showing up at any time to
try to take the case from the city police.”

Righty looked at the konulan. “Are you
absolutely sure?”

The konulan nodded.

Righty felt a wave of self-hatred crash
upon him as he realized his stupidity for not having previously
given the konulans the task of surveilling the city’s police and
familiarizing themselves with the names, faces, and home addresses
of all the top ranks. And as for the federal police, the
self-hatred was even more intense. He didn’t even know what agency
was being referred to, much less where they were headquartered,
what their numbers were, etc.

Now, he had to risk exposing himself in
a police station today. If not, by tomorrow, the entire matter
could be even more complicated, with formal charges having been
filed against Tats and the others and with the federal police
potentially involved. While his heart had been in the right place
keeping dozens of konulans watching his home, Ringsetter, and his
ranch separately, his mind had not been.

“Friends,” Righty began, looking at
Harold first and then at the numerous konulans in the cabin, “I
might be enjoying one of my last moments as a free man. I want to
ask of you—not order you—that, if this is a trap of some kind, you
do whatever it takes to free me and keep my family safe. In my
absence, you answer to Harold. He will tell you what you need to
do.”

A somber mood filled the room. Righty
then directed his discourse directly towards Harold, whose eyes
appeared somewhat moist. “We’ve been through a lot, friend. I want
you to know that if I am arrested today, a war begins.”

Harold’s eyes went from moist to
boiling to bone dry in seconds, like a frying pan sizzling and
evaporating the moisture that dared tread its surface.

“I have sought, and will continue to
seek, a peaceful existence with my fellow man while I pursue what I
know in my heart to be a great destiny, but to those who seek to
harm my friends, my business, my family, my person, or my liberty,
they will learn the consequences of my wrath and feel their frailty
against a roaring lion.”

Harold’s eyes now gleamed with a
pleasure that under any prior circumstances would have unnerved
Righty. But Righty knew that, even by his mental decision to
proceed forward with this plan, he was no longer the same person. A
threshold had been passed. The game was now all or nothing. He
thought of the rock climbing coach in his dreams.

You’ve got to reach the
top.

You sure as hell won’t make
it down.

You already long since
entered the death zone.

With a knowing gaze between him and
Harold, Righty’s final statement merely accentuated what was
already known: “No rules, Harold.”

Chapter 9

Benjamin and Willis were two of only a
dozen or so National Drug Police Agents in Sivingdel. Senator
Hutherton, viewing the capital city as his backyard and therefore
more worthy of vigorous police efforts, had instructed figurehead
Chief Rulgers, of the NDP, to concentrate policing there. Had it
not been for the massacre in Sivingdel, even these agents might not
have been here.

They were currently in high spirits,
having just received a tip that—in spite of the nonchalant attitude
of the Sivingdel Police, whom they hated and distrusted
vehemently—one of the biggest drug seizures to date had just
happened, leaving the former record so far behind it wasn’t visible
with man’s most powerful telescope.

They knew the chief was a corrupt old
dog and had been on the payroll of Heavy Sam. They also knew that a
new kingpin, far more subtle than the freakish giant, had slowly
but surely established near-total dominance of the city’s black
market and quite possibly without having had the courtesy to make
so much as a small donation to the city police department in the
process.