Chapter 6

Ricardo Cabaliero, the drug king, had a large house in the Grant Park area of Atlanta, east of the old Turner Field. As I arrived there, I could hear him questioning one of his men.

“What the hell is going on on the other side of the city, amigo?” he demanded in Mexican. It appeared that the late night movies had been interrupted, even those on the Spanish language channel, by the events happening on the west side of the city.

“Some kind of a fire and an explosion,” I heard another man answer.

I had arrived at the back of the house in the kitchen which was dark and presently empty. I had needed to make an unscheduled stop at a big box construction supply store on the way here to pick up more rope and chain, as I had used up most of what Marius had on hand dealing with him and the other pimps.

Ricardo and a number of his men were gathered at his house for a Friday night party. There were numerous beer and whiskey bottles visible in the living room where they currently were.

On walking into the dining room, I found out what else was on the menu that night. There were two young women huddled on the makeshift bed there along with a variety of drugs on the nearby table. The women appeared to have been well used, perhaps by more than one of the men at a time. Both of them also appeared to be stoned, as they didn’t notice me at all, but I noticed that they were both chained by an ankle to eye bolts in the floor. I would need to check the second floor, but later.

“Why the fuck should I give a damn about that?” Ricardo demanded in a loud voice, just as I stepped into the doorway to the living room.

“Because they were some of your best customers,” I said, and they all turned toward me in surprise. Several guns instantly came out, but I had already cast the spell to prevent them from working.

“Who the hell are you, and how did you get into my house?” Ricardo demanded in an unhappy voice.

“Marius’s cook called me the Devil, but the Devil would have more mercy on you than I will,” I told him, before adding, “You are going to need to find more customers, but then you aren’t going to be in business any longer, so it really doesn’t make any difference.”

“Kill the cop pig,” Ricardo told those now standing around him. Several raised their guns and pulled the triggers. Nothing happened.

“What are you waiting for?” Ricardo shouted at them.

“The guns, they don’t work,” one of his men told him. Several of the others had drawn long knives and started toward me. The thing about knives, swords, machetes, and other edged weapons, is that they always work, just as staffs and other striking weapons do. Magic doesn’t stop them from working, and that’s why Wizards always use them. A partial freeze spell stopped all of them in their tracks though.

Ricardo blasted out a string of curses in Mexican, but my Mexican wasn’t that good, and I only gathered that he was cursing all of my ancestors back for at least five generations or so. A quick silence spell shut him up. Oh, he was still cursing, but no one could hear him; he couldn’t even hear himself which made him even angrier, and he soon turned red in the face, and started gasping for breath. His men looked at him in horror.

“Now that we have some quiet, let’s discuss business like reasonable people. There are several things that I want to know, and you are going to answer my questions ... one way or another,” I told them.

“We’ll start with the locations of your warehouse and your drug distribution houses. Where are they, and what are their addresses?” I demanded. No one spoke, so I picked the first man on my left, and cast the truth spell on him.

“Tell me where your warehouse is and what drug houses you know about,” I told him. He sweated and strained over the next few minutes, but the partial freeze spell held him in place, and the truth spell worked on his resistance. The harder he resisted, the better the spell worked at making him tell the truth. He eventually started giving me the addresses that I wanted. It was easy to memorize them, and then move onto the next man to his left. All of them eventually revealed what they knew. There were some additions but not many. We finally came to Ricardo.

The television still had scenes from the west side of the city, and showed the collapsed buildings and a number of the pimps hanging from the street lights. I turned all of them so they could see the screen.

“Those are some of your former clients. They didn’t want to answer my questions, and I have used them as an example of what happens to those who don’t cooperate with me. Now, I have more questions, and I will get answers to them or else. I’ve brought plenty of rope with me,” I told them as the screen showed closer views of several bodies in a row hanging from the street lights and swaying in the wind that had come up. There were several calls on God, Jesus, and Mary then for help.

“We’ll start with the boss,” I said next, turning to Ricardo. “What do you know about the kidnapping, torture, and murder of children?” I demanded.

“Fuck you, gringo. You can’t make me talk with your tricks. I’m not some fool like these others,” Ricardo told me in a defiant voice.

“Okay, I can work with that,” I told him with a grin. “A Mex like you with all of the cholesterol laden food that you have eaten, I’ll bet your arteries are just full of plaque. How long do you think it will take me to induce a heart attack in you. You were close when you couldn’t get your curses out,” I told him, and he turned pale at my threat because he knew it was true.

“You fucking bastard,” he screamed. “How do you know about that?”

“Because MY children were among those kidnapped and murdered,” I told him in a voice full of rage.

“Shit!” several of the other men said.

“Tell him,” others encouraged Ricardo.

“What do I get if I tell you?” Ricardo asked trying to bargain.

“A quick death.”

“Then why should I say anything?”

“Because if you don’t, and I have to get it out of you, you are still going to die, but it will take a lot longer, and be a lot more painful, and you will beg me to kill you before I allow you to die,” I told them in a determined voice. They all went very pale on hearing this.

“Tell him, Ricardo,” several of the men encouraged their boss again.

“I think you’re lying,” Ricardo said instead. “The cops would never allow you to do that, and you won’t be able to use any of the evidence in court that you tricked these fools into revealing,” he finished in defiance.

“I’m not with the cops. I was in Special Operations in the Army before being retired, and I could care less about the courts. I want revenge, and no one, not the cops or the Army, is going to stop me from getting it,” I told him before casting a pain spell on him. Ricardo screamed and screamed, but I had also cast a silence spell prior to that so none of the noise escaped the house. The other men stared at him in horror. After a time, I canceled the pain spell. Ricardo would have fallen over if the partial freeze spell didn’t hold him up in place.

“What kind of Devil are you?” he finally panted in a whisper as the tears dripped down his cheeks, and sweat rolled down his entire body.

“I am the Devil of Rage and Revenge,” I told him and laughed.

“What do you know?” I demanded in a stern, harsh voice immediately following that.

“We heard that the mob supplied the vehicle and some muscle for an abduction a few weeks ago, but we never knew who or when. There wasn’t anything on the news about it, and we thought that they were bullshitting us,” he told me.

“And that’s all that you know?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Then our business is concluded,” I told them and turned to leave.

“Aren’t you going to release us? We told you everything,” several pleaded from behind me. I didn’t answer them, but returned to the dining room and the two young women there. They hadn’t moved in the time I had been here. A quick spell and the locks holding the chains to their ankles opened before I transferred myself and them to a church in the area, where I was sure they would be found in the morning and taken care of.

On returning to the house, I found those in the front room were in a panic, but appeared relieved on my reappearance.

“I have sent your guests away, and I will deal with all of you shortly,” I told them before going to search the rest of the house for drugs and money. I checked the upstairs, but no one was there. There were some drugs but a lot more money ... cold hard cash in several bags in the basement. I sent the money bags to join Marius’s gold in my cart but left the drugs, as I had no use for them.

On returning to the living room with the rope, those there moaned on seeing it.

“You must release us. We told you everything,” Ricardo demanded.

“By telling me what I wanted to know, you have only earned a quick death. There is no forgiveness. The shit that you sell destroys lives. You’re lucky that I don’t make you suffer for as long as many of your customers do, but I don’t have time for that, as I have other things to do, others to see,” I told them as I started forming nooses from lengths of rope, one for each of them.

Before beginning to remove the men to the street lights in the area, I started the water running slowly in the house. Again, I left their guns in the house but spread them out. Each of them was hung from a street light in the area, and they kicked and danced as they slowly strangled, but I didn’t stop to watch this time. When finished, I cast the spell to separate the water into its component parts. A short time later, I canceled the spell preventing the guns from firing. The force of the explosion of the house tore Ricardo’s corpse from the street light not far from his house.

It was very late by now, and I only knew where a few of the drug houses were located – specifically those in the Grant Park area as I had reconned the area rather thoroughly. The other addresses in the Virginia Highlands, Castleburry Hill, Mechanicksville, and Vine City would need to wait to be checked out tomorrow in the daylight which was fast approaching.

On going to the two houses in the Grant Park area that I had learned of, I found two men in each house. After freezing them in place. I set fire to each house after searching it. There was money at each one, and I sent it to join the other money, but left the drugs to burn. It appeared that the drug business was very profitable in Atlanta.

There were sirens and flashing lights all over the Grant Park area by then, and I transferred to a small empty house in a quieter area of the city that I had checked out several days ago. It had been provisioned with food from one of the food warehouses that I had visited. A good hot meal and some sleep were what I needed now. It had been a very productive night, and I could use the rest.

While Max slept, there were others who were wide awake that night. The Atlanta Police Department, and the Fire Department were both very busy. There were fires to extinguish in the blown up and collapsed buildings on both sides of the city. There were also all of the bodies hanging from street lights to be investigated by the crime scene tech before they could be removed.