Daimon - DANIELLE BOLGER (best fiction novels TXT) 📗

Morning light shined in from the window. It was time to go. I did not know why sunrise was the absolute curfew for me, because I did not really expect Ryan to awaken to a rooster's crow. Still, I slipped out of the tiny apartment by tiptoeing past the sleeping lounge and barely made a sound as the front door clicked shut.

I did not want Ryan to see me for what I really was; for the daylight to shine so brightly upon me that it would expose my monstrous features. That was what I told myself, but this was not the only time I had run away from Ryan.

Years ago, when Jack left for the west coast, Ryan extended his support to me, but I pushed him away and out of my life. Ryan was moody, passionate and sometimes angry, but mostly he was good and kind— Too kind to someone like me. He had done everything he could to help people. He defended the little guy, and he always did it fighting fair. He had uncompromising morals, and that was what scared me. I knew that if he saw me for who I really was, he would stop caring for me. I could not allow the light to expose me as the monster I had become.

As I drove away, I could not shake the sense that he was staring at me through his window, wondering why I had callously left without so much as a goodbye.

“This is all you have?” I demanded.

Zach scoffed. “There are hundreds of pictures here. How many do you need?”

“Zach!” I groaned. “You said you had pictures of Devil's Eden, but these… These are just a bunch of drunk teenagers out clubbing.”

The USB's images flashed upon my tablet's screen; all full of kids falling over themselves whilst grinning like imbeciles— all completely useless. What I needed was something on the Foxes, something on Valentine or Ruby, but these photographs just displayed the decrepit lifestyles of youngsters who gave up believing in any kind of future.

He rolled his eyes. “Just keep going through them, I promise there's some interesting stuff in there.”

I glared back at him and his annoying T-shirt that read: I 8 ∑ π and loved it! I tried to remind myself that his attire used to amuse me; the shirts were clever and so cheesy that they were great, but I couldn't feel that sentiment anymore.

“Can I take your order?” The waitress popped out of the restaurant at our street-side table.

“Ah, how 'bout, oh why not? A Frappuccino. Caramel,” Zach ordered, boisterously.

“Certainly,” the waitress exclaimed with far too much enthusiasm for her mundane job. “For you, miss?”

“A red wine,” I stated after some thought.

“Seriously?” Zach exclaimed. “It's barely after midday, and wasn't it just yesterday that you said you gave up drinking?”

“I never said I gave up drinking, I simply said I was feeling off it. Today, I think I like the look of the color. Besides, it is Saturday,” I justified.

Zach chuckled. “There we go. I knew the blood-thirsty-Jane wouldn't be gone for long. You sure you don't wanna order some lunch?”

The waitress looked at me expectantly.

Your heart sounds divine, as does that woman's to my right. “I'm sure. I had a late breakfast, so I'm satiated for the time being.”

“Just the drinks, then.” Zach grinned at the waitress. As she departed, he stared blatantly at her ass.

Apparently my expression said something. “What?” Zach demanded. “Hey, I'm a single guy. I have every right, and a pretty little brunette like that needs some appreciation.”

“I'm sure the eyes on the back of her head appreciate it,” I mumbled.

I turned to another picture. “Who is this?” I pointed out a figure to Zach. This man was large, in the scary sense; big, strong, with a murderous look in his eyes. I guessed he could have easily been seven foot tall. The lighting was poor. I supposed that was because the photo was taken at night without a flash, but from it I could ascertain that he had short cropped dark hair, mildly tanned skin, a square chin and was massively built. It was not the menacing appearance that spurred my enquiry, however, it was the police badge affixed to his suit. Any cop that was situated in Devil's Eden warranted note, since their presence in the region was a rare occurrence.

“Ah,” Zach exclaimed. “That's Detective Smoke. That picture is from a year or so back, where a murder had taken place in the middle of a street inside Paradise Grove. Since the place was where it was, there weren’t too many coppers on the scene, but he turned up with a couple others. Trouble was, by the time I heard about the incident the body had already been moved. Still, he hung around to secure the area, apparently. I tried to take a few sneaky shots but he saw, and that made me back right off. He didn’t do or say anything; he didn’t need to. All he had to do was look at me with that quietly furious expression, and those black eyes did the rest to freak me right out.”

I gasped. “Black eyes?”

Zach narrowed his gaze on me. “Shit. I never realized how dark your eyes are too. Whoa, you have the same freaky eyes as him.”

Black eyes. Did that mean he's another monster like me?

“Here you go!” The rudely excited girl laid our glasses on the table. She smiled to each of us and offered, “If there is anything else you need, please do not hesitate to wave me back. Okay?”

“Alright, sweetie.” Zach smiled ridiculously wide, already forgetting the alarm he correlated with my dark glare.

I thought I was going to be sick but had a swig of my drink instead. Recovering from my revulsion, I flicked over to the next few photos that held Detective Smoke, and not the crime scene, as the focal point.

“You managed to take a few more of him, even after you had him staring straight at you.” I passed from a dark-eyed glare at the camera to a nondescript shot of the same large man.

“Couldn’t help but take a few more shots, even if he did freak me out. There is something about him, isn't there?” Zach nodded as he inhaled his beverage. “The moment I saw him, I swear I could tell how shady he was. I mean, shit—look at him! Anyone can see it. I guess, maybe, all people can notice is his massive stature, so much so, that they wouldn't even dare to glance at him. Jane, everyone was freaked by him. I've never seen a crime scene with so little photos taken, so little footage shot. It was like they were afraid that they would capture him and he would go berserk at them because of it.”

“Smoke,” I sounded it out. “That can't be his real name.”

Zach nodded. “I agree, but I think you and I both know a cop working in Paradise Grove is no ordinary cop.”

I flicked to another image of the massive man. “He is wearing a badge. That means he's with the police unless that's a fabrication.”

“It's not,” he corrected. “I got a pretty close look at that thing, and I can swear it's the real deal. Still, I got a good look at him, too, and I can swear that he's one of those gangsters.”

If Zach claimed the badge was real, then I believed him without a doubt. During my explorations as a reporter I needed a few, perhaps frowned upon, fake-identifications. Zach was kind enough to provide me with them. He was a genius with anything techno-savvy or photographic. That was what made him perfect at forging documents. In any other city he would have made a killing making false eighteen-plus cards, but since these were obsolete in the Blue Coast he turned his talents to other uses. I did not know the details of these, but I knew it was nothing too dark, not when it came to Zach. He was all about giving people hope, second goes, not about aiding and abetting heinous criminals. His heart was so kind that he would help anybody in need; anybody, as long as they were not stained with blood. That was why, though he was my friend, I could never really be close to him.

“I wonder what this Smoke was covering up,” I mused.

Zach finished a long sip of his coffee. “I wish I knew too. I bet it would have been juicy. Then again, if the Foxes were involved, maybe it's best not to know too much.”

“That's true,” I agreed evenly. “If you dip your hands too deep into that chasm then you'll find your whole body is suddenly enveloped by the darkness. Once swallowed, you will never find your way back into the light again.”

“Christ,” he whispered, and yet somehow a smirk still appeared on his features. “Good thing I backed off Bigfoot there. Say, Jane, you've been investigating them for a pretty long time now—shit, since you started at the Horizon. How have you managed to keep out of their radar? Is it 'cause you're a chick that maybe they haven't taken you seriously, or have you not found anything worthwhile?”

Normally, I would have given him a playful dark stare on the two fronts of insult, but I just gazed, deeply, into the crimson liquid before me. It looked satisfying, but its smell and taste were disappointing.

“I definitely found something worthwhile—I found mountains of worthwhile. The only thing I haven't found is evidence to corroborate it all.”

“You know,” Zach pressed, “you've gotten me to source certain pictures and IDs and that, but you haven't actually told me what you've uncovered. If you don't mind, I'd love to know where you're at with your story. I mean, if you brought me up to speed, I could probably help you way easier since I’d know what I'm looking for.”

I tore my gaze from the crimson glass, up into Zach's green eyes. “Are you sure you want to know? I was not kidding when I said that this darkness could consume you.”

“Quit being cryptic, Jane. That's just making me all the more curious. Curiosity can be even worse than the knowledge, just ask the cat.” Smiling, he was always smiling.

“Alright then,” I relented. “I guess I'll start at the city's morbid past, at its recent descent into darkness: Our current gangster regime, the Foxes, spawned during the Blue Coast's most virulent time; when crime and violence was at its peak, when the city had its highest mortality rate ever. It was at the end of the gang war that the Foxes rose from the ashes and took sole control of the city. It was because of this war that they gained so much power even the police fear them.”

Zach’s mouth formed a thin line.

I continued. “This war lasted only six years, but the violence and terror steadily escalated, right up until its climax more than a decade ago. The last year, of course, being the worst.”

“There were five of them, weren't there?” Zach inquired. He stared deeply into his mug with a rarely seen somber expression.

I nodded. “Yeah, five gangs altogether: the Barking Dogs, the Silver Blades, the Fanatics, the Dynasties and the Crimson Coins. All were separate, each ruling their own district, just barely tolerating one another. They lived harmoniously, for a time, with the citizens of the Blue Coast vaguely aware of their existence unless their services were required. However, at the start of the war, the brother of the Silver Blades boss raped the daughter of the Crimson Coins’ leader. Soon, tentative alliances were made and a war was waged. The gangs massacred one another, and any unlucky bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time fell to their untimely end.

“After six years of the relentless bloodshed, the war suddenly ceased. The gangs crumbled overnight. Each of the leaders mysteriously vanished, and numerous lackeys were experiencing the feel of metal bracelets around their wrists before being thrown into prison. Many more members were dead. No one could explain the mysterious end to the reign of the gangs, but, regardless, the citizens rejoiced at the prospect of peace for the future.

“However, when the smoke finally cleared, it became evident that peace would come at a price. At the end of the war, a new gang had surfaced who operated quietly to remove their opposition. Once they eradicated their competition,