Page 7 of The Taste

That was the crazy thought Gil Hernandez had after he staggered out of the nightclub. Snaking away from the illuminated buildings, and into an alleyway to take a piss, blinking into The Darkness, he tripped slightly when he tried to light a cigarette. He could have sworn he’d seen a set of eyes, glaring back at him. He’d taken too much. He shook his head.

The Darkness breathed. Gil flinched and spun around. He had the unlit cigarette in his mouth and his lighter clasped in his hand. His hand began trembling slightly. He felt a warm breath next to his ear, on the back of his neck. Something had definitely just breathed on him.

Fuck, he’d overdone the pills tonight. But that was nothing new. He was burning through the money. It was dirty money. Blood money. He’d snatched it out of the back seat of the limo of the Mexican cartel, while the limo driver lay bleeding out, clutching his slashed jugular in the front seat. The Demonios’ chief honcho, Horatio, wasn’t a man to steal things from. Fuck knows where he had been when Gil had taken the money, but Gil hadn’t hung around to find out. He was a nobody, a lowly foot soldier. A runner. He did the dirty work for the Demonios, the largest Mexican cartel in southern California. And he hardly got anything from it. So when he saw the unguarded bag full of cash there, calling his name, he did what any desperate low life would do. He took the money and he ran. And he’d been burning through it ever since. He’d given a bundle to his cousin, who had grand aspirations to set up a bakery or some shit. Everyone in the family had praised him for his generosity, his aunt had cried. Naive bitch. Then he’d fucked off to Vegas and hadn’t looked back.

That had been six months ago. Gambling, parties, girls, drugs and good times. He’d looked over his shoulder at first, sure, but no one had come. No one had heard anything or seen anyone from the SoCal Demonios since that fateful night he’d taken the money. It’s like they had all disappeared. Gil couldn’t believe his luck.

So he could be forgiven for not looking over his shoulder that night after coming out of the nightclub. Even if he had, he couldn’t have seen The Darkness rush up behind him. He wouldn’t have heard. The Darkness was silent.

But The Darkness liked to play with its food before eating it. The Darkness wanted its victim to be trembling with fear, rancid with the smell of it. The Darkness liked it like that. He liked to tease, he liked to taunt. He liked the promise of violence, of death. It made him feel alive. He liked the threat, the anticipation. He wanted Gil to be afraid, and to know what it was he was afraid of. To look him in the eye and know.

For The Darkness was coming for Gil that night. He laid in wait, planned, watched. Now The Darkness was breathing down his neck and holding a knife.

The Darkness decided it was time.

Gil felt cold steel at his throat and a wall of hard flesh at his back.

“Dios mío!” Gil breathed in sharply.

He was roughly swung around so he was face to face with the man in the darkness who was going to kill him.

He looked and his eyes widened. “You? They sent the Fantasma de la Muerte?” He tried to swallow but the steel of the knife blade was pressing against his Adam’s apple.

Yes, Gil knew The Darkness alright. His reputation preceded him.

The Darkness almost smiled, but it wasn’t a smile, it was a curl of his lips. Like playtime was about to begin.

“I’ve heard stories about you, they send you to kill people, don’t they?” Gil began, his fear making him gabble quickly. “You are their assassin? The one they send for the high end wet work? Like a shadow in the night, the phantom of death descends. And you don’t ever speak, they say you had your voice box cut out, they say God took it as punishment for your sins, or the devil took it as payment for passage out from hell-”

The Darkness lost his temper. He had heard what they said about him. He was the shadow of death, the bringer of endings, he had been their tool, to use for one purpose, and one purpose only.

He took people’s lives.

He didn’t blink, he didn’t breathe, he moved the hand holding the blade forward in a neat, quick slash. Gil’s throat sliced open. Blood poured out. Pattering on the sidewalk like rain. The Phantom in the darkness took a neat step back, avoiding getting a single drop on him. He didn’t like getting covered in their blood. It dried sticky. In the dim light in the alleyway, the victim’s blood looked black, like slick tar. Gil blinked up at him once, twice. Surprise and curiosity on his face. Then he went down.

The Darkness didn’t break his fall, didn’t lower him down softly, he let Gil drop to the ground.

The Darkness did not perspire a bead of sweat, did not cry a tear of regret, did not even frown. His breath did not stutter in his chest. He was The Darkness, he was death itself. He was a monster. All of it true.

What was not true was that they had sent him to kill Gil. No, The Darkness had decided to do that all on his own. He was on a mission. He was out for revenge. For cold, sweet revenge. He had his own mind, after all, and it had decided enough was enough. He wanted blood. Lots of it. To make up for the injustice of it all. For the hurt they had caused. For the betrayal. He was righting their wrongs. That was what had kept him alive, after all. That is what he lived for. He would finish them all.

And he was. One by one. From the darkness. Where he preferred to be. For he was The Darkness. He had nearly finished his mission, as well. Now that this guy was history, he had one more on his list. One more.

He dropped down and hastily ripped open the man’s shirt to check. Yes, there it was, above his heart, the burnt-on brand of Demonios, a crying Virgin Mary. It matched his own. For yes, he was one of them. Or he had been, at least. Now, he was not. They had burnt it on him years ago. He wanted to cut it out of his skin. He hadn’t gotten around to doing it yet. He was too busy killing them to treat himself to that.

Satisfied with the kill, he glanced around, but he knew no one had seen. He’d purposely picked this place, this time, this moment. He had a pre-kill ritual, he’d worn gloves, he’d sharpened his blade. He knew what he was doing. He wiped the blade clean on the victim’s jacket. He looked down one last time. His eyes reflected nothing, no hint of remorse, no dash of emotion. He uttered no words and he felt nothing.

He took out his own lighter from within his dark clothes. He lit it under his knife blade for a moment, disinfecting it out of necessity.

He had a post-kill ritual, too. He ripped open his own jacket to the shirt under it. He pulled his T-shirt up, and placed the tip of the knife against the skin on his abdomen. He used to check where he was marking. He used to have neat little rows, tally marks, neat scores of five marks, like harmless picket fences. They started from his right rib. They worked their way along his torso. Down, rows and rows and rows. When they got to below his belly button, he’d run out of room, so he’d gone diagonally over the old marks. They had become more erratic. No longer neat little tallies, now gashes, like werewolf scratches. With this kill, he didn’t care where he marked, but he had to mark himself. He didn’t look down to do it, he felt the tip of the blade against his skin, he pushed and dragged. He felt the hot sting. He didn’t like it, or dislike it, it was a compulsion, he simply had to do it, and that was that.

The Darkness sighed, silently. Always silently. The Darkness put the blade away. And his phone vibrated in his pocket. The Darkness had an incoming call. He pursed his lips, it was ruining his scene.

He yanked it out of his pocket with an impatient sigh, irritated he’d been interrupted from his post-kill ritual.

He looked at the screen to see who was calling. Colt. The President of the Black Coyotes MC. His Prez. He had to answer this.

He pressed the button to accept the call and put the phone to his ear.

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