Mandrill Park

Mandrill Park, Part 3

The cool, anemic rain couldn't disguise the musk of rot, the scent of corruption, riding the air.

Early winter, here, in Rubicon. The Wraithwell. Where the dead rarely, if ever, rested peacefully. Just outside the borders of Ninjatown, where Wayne Anastasio, underworld contract killer, was double-crossed and assassinated by members of his own organized crime family four years ago. Four years to the day.

In Rubicon, vengeance walked the streets clothed in memory and cemetery rot. There was nothing supernatural about it: in this place rage was as concrete as stone and the events that echoed down the corridors of Time left ripples that surged across an ocean of hate.

She hated dealing with the supernatural, her profession notwithstanding. She hated anything that couldn't be explained rationally. She hated being exposed to the secret dark side of reality.

She hated ghosts.

Electronic noise sputtered from her mike.

"I'm getting EM spikes all over the place," DeVeer said excitedly. The harsh electronic modulation of his voice startled Vanna yet further. "Ambient static is climbing, too! Got nothing on radar and spectrothermal scans are coming up with drifting cold spots in your immediate area, Vanna. You see anything?"

For a moment she didn't answer.

"Vanna? You there?"

"Switch the mike back on and tell him 'No,'" The Revenant advised.

Without hesitation, Vanna complied. "Nothing here, Walt. Listen, let's maintain radio silence for just a while longer, like we discussed during last night's prep meeting, okay?"

"Affirmative," DeVeer responded, signing off.

"Better?" she asked, turning her mike back off.

"Better," came the answer, like a benediction from a cobra, that hiss lingering in her ear and oozing venom.

Neither spoke during the long passage of a dark minute as the rain drained out from the gunmetal gray cloudbank above, hissing as if it would burn everything it touched with wintry heat. Vanna's knees and back began to stiffen as she remained crouched next to the building's rooftop ledge. She was afraid to move.

"I hate the park," the spectral voice said at last. "I hate it. Over the years Mandrill Park has been the Mob's favorite execution ground. I think we've murdered nearly two dozen people there over the past thirty years."

Vanna thought, Okay, fine. What does someone say to that?

A morose ex-hitman, a murder victim himself, crossing from beyond life's Great Veil, haunting Mandrill Park's twenty-acre-square, tree-festooned expanse. Vanna allowed herself a light sigh, shuddering slightly from the chill, her flesh crawling in the face of fear. She still couldn't stand the idea of turning her head to see the origin of that hollow voice.

She wasn't ready to look the Devil in the eyes.

"They wander that land, you know, walking in the shadows of the trees, through the cobbled paths of the Japanese tea garden, past the giant twin crosses of St. Alessandro, past the reflecting pool and the bocci ball field ... they wander. They fade in and out from shadow, friendless and alone, locked in silence, whispering in eternal gloom, weeping their crocodile tears. Liars, cheats, thieves, bullies, and rapists betrayed by other liars, cheats, thieves, and rapists. You gotta love it. Biblical irony as written by an angry circus clown ... great stuff."

"There is a certain poetic irony to it," Vanna commented past a dry mouth. "So, how come you're not down there among them, wandering lost and silent like the other phantoms?"