Hunter
The Last Mission
By Billy_Ray77
Chapter 4
The next morning I awoke with those same loving eyes still staring at me. It was just Elenita, she must have sent the others on their way, with a generous bonus—she usually did, and they certainly earned it.
Although it was accompanied by a bit of disorientation, I felt at peace. No stolen memories lingered in back of my mind, no guilt gnawed at guts, no paranoia crawled along my spine, no rage pressed on my skull. It wouldn’t last—but I had it now.
And I intended to enjoy it.
“Magangdang umaga. What a lovely site to wake up to.”
Warm fingers encircled my semi-rigid cock, quickly eliminating the ‘semi’.
“Are you still compelling me to need your cum?”
“No, that stopped when I fell asleep.”
“Well then, I guess that I just want it.”
Elenita grinned a gorgeous grin as her head disappeared under the thin sheet.
A warm mouth replaced the gentle fingers. I didn’t use the empathic link. I was currently sated, addiction wise, and if I turned it on, I was pretty sure it would stay on until I passed out. Not that I couldn’t turn it off—I just knew it was unlikely.
It didn’t take long for her to get what she wanted.
I closed my eyes allowed myself to float... dozing on a comfortable cool cloud of orgasmic afterglow and emotional contentment. That too was a hedonistic weakness of a sort. A mental vacation that I hoped would recharge my defenses and help me keep my darker nature at bay—or, at least solidly on task. This freedom, this high, would slowly dissipate throughout the day, but it would enable me to look in a mirror for a while.
When I opened my eyes Elenita snuggled against me, awake but still, as though she didn’t want to disturbed me. I don’t know how long I had dozed.
I sensed she knew I had awakened. I had been in her mind many times, shared far too many empathic links with her. When things were quiet, when it was just us, alone and peaceful, she could sense my mood.
“I’ve called down for breakfast, but there’s already coffee service on the table.”
“Thank you, you think of everything.”
“Walang anuman, mahalko.” (You’re welcome, my love) “Are you here for a time or will you be leaving sooner?” She spoke with a typical Filipino accent—every word painstakingly enunciated, whether it was the right word or not.
I may have been on the down slope of my high, but I hadn’t lost too much altitude yet—so I barely felt the twinge of guilt or the rush of sadness. The sadness I had wanted to avoid.
“I’m working, I should leave today.”
“That is too bad... you have not been here for a while.”
Because it was getting too hard to leave. A feeling I was trying to understand, but hadn’t, as of yet.
“How is school coming along?”
She knew me, once I changed the subject, it stayed changed.
Her voice was soft. She didn’t move her head from my chest.
“It is going well. Two more semesters and I am a nurse.”
“Elle, I’m so proud of you.”
And I was. She had overcome numerous obstacles to get to where she was. By rights she should be a drug addled street hooker by now.
She had grown up on the streets of Tondo, a tough, crime ridden part of Manila that even most natives avoided. Her mother had died giving birth to her younger brother and her father was a low rent criminal whose best efforts got them a house that was nothing more than a few two by fours and sheet of corrugated tin to keep the rain off. He tried to pass his meager skills to his children.
She’d wanted more and worked hard for an education. As a little girl she had dreams of becoming a nurse as she strung flowers for an older woman, selling them to Jeepney and taxi drivers to earn the few pesos it took to go to school each day. It wasn’t enough for the required skirt and blouse, but her father’s lessons did allow her to steal the clothing she needed.
As she grew, her beauty became apparent and by fourteen many of those drivers wanted more than flowers and offered more than a few pesos. She’d resisted those offers.
Tondo was the sort of place where knives are the weapon of choice and most grown men bear scars from their youth. Nasty scars that, at first make you wonder how they survived—then you realize that quite a few hadn’t.
When she was sixteen her brother was killed in a gang fight shortly after her father went to prison. The offers then became too tempting to pass up. That eventually led her to Manny and then to me. But she’d never given up on her dream, never stopped working towards her goal.
“Are you?”
“You know I am.”
“Yet, you do not marry me.”
“I can’t.”
“You love me, don’t you?”
“I’ve never said that.”
I didn’t have to. When we were together like this... She just knew.
Her voice remained soft.
“Yes, parang nakitako rin. (I’ve noticed that too)”
“What good would it do to say it? Where would it lead? You know what I do—I would be gone all the time and you would be in danger if anyone I went after got away from me.”
“But I love you. Shouldn’t an American consider it... ano sabe mo... ‘respectful’ to let me make my own choice?”
“Not this American. This American hunts dangerous people for a living, people who know how to hunt right back. My wife would be a prime target, my girlfriend too. You’re only safe when you are a whore that I use—nothing more... you can’t be anything more.”
“And when I am no longer a whore?”
“My heart will break... you will never see me again... and you will live a long, normal... happy life.”
“So this man you will kill, what has he done?”
I knew her, once she changed the subject, the subject stayed changed.
We often talked about jobs I had been on, or was going on. Not what I did to them, but what they had done to deserve it. She liked hearing about the bastards—like reading a tabloid, I supposed.
“Elle, not this one, he’s a psychopath.”
“Please, tell me.”
“It’s horrible... why would you want to hear such things?”
“So that as you tell me, you will remind yourself why you must stop him.”
She knew I didn’t like to kill... most of the time.
“This one needs stopping. He kills his victims slowly, painfully.”
“How?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Because it will steel your resolve, help you find your center and enable you to focus properly.”
“Where did you get that?”
“You told me.”
“I told you? When?”
“Last night, right before you went to sleep. You were hard to understand, but that is what you tell to me.”
“Well, you can’t believe everything I say, I’m a notorious liar.”
“Not about this. What does he do to them?”
I could see no way out—not without starting a argument, and I wouldn’t be here long enough to let something like that waste time.
“Fine, but remember, you asked.
“He tortures his victims slowly, breaking or crushing most of the bones and joints. The docs say they endure days, maybe a week of it before he kills them... then he drags that out as well by attacking certain internal organs ensuring enough damage to be fatal. Some die over the course of a few hours, some have lasted as long as a day or two.”
“He sounds kakila-kilabot.” she snuggled closer to me. “I’m glad that you will stop him, that you will save Jenny.”
“I didn’t say anything about Jenny.”
“You did not, but she walked away without a word a few days ago, and now you are here. I am not stupid.” She paused, thoughtfully, “I haven’t gotten to know her well, she is new, but she seems nice. You will save her, di ba?”
“I’ll save as many as I can...” What I didn’t say was that he had likely already started in on his captives—Jenny could very well be beyond saving as we spoke.
“You will stop him,” She shifted, looking up at me, “it is the right thing, you know.”
“Thank you, but I have no reservations about this one.”
“You should not. Where are you going?”
“Boracay.”
“I hear that is very beautiful.”
“Why don’t you come? I could use some company”
“I thought being with you was dangerous.”
“Being someone I obviously care about is dangerous. It’s not uncommon for a foreigner to pick up a bar girl in Manila and take her around—and once I locate him, I can send you away.”
“I cannot. With my school, I could not be away more than a day or two—most of my time would be traveling.”
I tried playing dirty.
“I met Anna, last night, maybe I should look her up.”
“She would like that—and you will like her, She is very nice. I like to talk to her, no matter my problem... talking to her always make me feel better. I have her number on my phone, if you want it.”
I’m not sure why I thought I could make her jealous considering what had happened last night, and many nights like it.
“Also,” she continued, regarding me with concern, “you spend too much time alone... Anna would be good for you, she is very... Comfortable? No, that is not the word...”
“Comforting?”
“Yes, comforting. Would you like me to arrange your travel? It will be cheaper if I call.”
Like many third world countries, prices were often set more due to accent and country of origin rather than any economic law of supply and demand.
“Good idea.”
While Elenita was on the phone with the airline, I called in to my boss.
“Why didn’t you call yesterday?” He snapped as soon as he recognized my voice. He actually sounded angry.
“Sorry, mother.” A thought occurred to me. Something that had seemed off since this case came up but hadn’t seemed worth mentioning until his outburst made me think of it again. “Frank, why the sudden concern... and if this guy has slipped away from us in the past, why isn’t that tracker cleaning up his own mess?”
He didn’t say anything for a while.
“Frank?”
“Alright—Look, Hunter, I wanted to tell you right off...shit I’m gonna catch hell... The last two trackers we sent after this guy disappeared.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Collins first, then Simson.”
“You bunch of fucking pencil necks! You didn’t think it important to tell me the guy I’m looking for has killed trackers? What the fuck?!”
With our advantages, a tracker would normally have to be particularly sloppy to get himself killed, and neither Collins nor Simson had ever struck me as sloppy—which meant the quarry was particularly skilled.
“We aren’t telling anyone—and neither are you. If word gets, out every tracker on the payroll will be stepping on your heels—there will be more telepaths around there than normal folk.”
He was right, with that many trackers running around—all out for vengeance—one or more were bound to trip over each other and fuck up. Then the guy would vanish.
“I’m not saying you should put it in the newsletter, But you could have let me know. I’m the stupid bastard hanging my neck out.”
“That’s what I said... but the council decided you didn’t need to know.”
“Send me after a guy like this with no head’s up... I guess that shows where I stand.”
In a word: Expendable.
“If it’s any consolation, the consensus was that you were good enough you didn’t need to know. Part of keeping this all hush-hush. That’s why you were sent straight from your last assignment without coming in for a debrief with an empath.”
Debriefing with an empath was standard procedure for a tracker—to ensure the emotional aftermath of a mission wasn’t wearing the already thin line between assassin and psychopath even thinner. They saw deep into our emotions. Say you were pissed off at your boss. With an empathic link I could tell you were angry, an empath would know the fears beneath the anger and all the other emotions that had anything to do with it.
With focus and practice I could get away with lying to Frank or some other telepath, but you couldn’t lie to an empath about how you felt, and they could see emotional trouble coming long before you had any clue.
“You motherfuckers. You sit back there all safe and warm making these bullshit decisions... I wonder what you didn’t tell Collins and Simson that got them killed?”
“Simson knew... look, when we sent Collins out, it seemed like a normal Bundy—but the bodies he left behind on that one... and the ones we’ve tied to him since... the violence escalated dramatically. We think whatever happened when he killed Collins snapped something in his already warped mind. It took a long time to pick up his trail again and when we did... Hunter, this guy has become as sadistic and dangerous as any ever encountered—more.”
“And Collins and Simpson, they weren’t found?”
“No. And with what he’s done to the victims we do find... I don’t want to think about why they never turned up.”
I didn’t either—it could be me next.
“I’ll be in Boracay by tomorrow at the latest. Have team on standby.”
“Okay, they’re on the way... be careful, Hunter.”
“Like you give a shit.”
I hung up. I knew that it wasn’t fair to Frank, he was just following the rules—but he could have broken this one, hell, I broke rules all the time.
Elenita hung up right after I did.
“You cannot get out until tomorrow. So we have today and tonight. I buy you two tickets, I cannot go but you should take Anna—I still say she will be good for you.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t take anyone. This guy...”
“What?”
I didn’t want her to worry.
“Nothing. He’s just a real asshole.”
She bought it, or not—the knock on the door said breakfast was here and that started a mini vacation of sorts. We had all day and night. Even after my buzz had worn off I was still in good spirits.
She did that to me. With her I found it easy to push the lurking shadows of the world deep into the background. When she smiled the world became brighter, colors more vivid and negativity tended to slip away.
That night we shared a bed, not as whore and client, but as lovers.
I awoke as calm and contended as I had the day before.
We said our good byes in a long, luxurious and loving manner.