Chapter 8: A Double Life

Cody dreamed that he was on a massage table and the masseuse’s warm hands were spreading oil on his thighs, her fingers teasing the underside of the small towel that covered his crotch. As the dream turned to consciousness he realized it was not a masseuse that was teasing his crotch, but Jewel. She licked his leg and ran her fingers along the underside of his boxers.

“Good morning,” she purred as she watched his boxers start to tent.

Cody looked through half-closed eyelids and said, “It is indeed.”

She rolled to her knees to strip Cody and then crawled up his chest, aligning their nude bodies. She kissed him deeply as she slowly made love to her boyfriend of nine months.

An hour later the two lay on their backs, panting heavily.

“Yes, a good morning indeed,” said Cody with a goofy grin.

Jewel nodded. “What better way to start a Saturday?”

Cody turned and stroked the side of Jewel’s face. “Maybe with homemade waffles?” he asked.

Jewel’s eyes lit up. Homemade breakfast foods were her weakness.

“Go jump in the shower and I’ll get started.”

Jewel wasted no time. She jumped up and headed to the bathroom to get dressed. Cody paused a moment, then rolled onto his side and sat on the edge of the bed. They had settled into this routine a few months ago. On Saturdays they would sleep in, then whoever woke first would give the other time to sleep, but eventually would wake them with kisses or licks. Lovemaking would ensue, followed by a homemade breakfast.

Cody pulled on clothes and thought about his part of the morning he hid from Jewel. While she showered he would use Time Stop, Teleportation, and sometimes Invisibility, to jump to some location and kill a stranger in an effort to satisfy the unquenchable demand of The Onyx. Unlike the early weeks, he was now concentrating on targeting individuals that were guilty of some capital crime.

Every so often The Onyx would give Cody a choice – enhance one of his current enablements or choose a new one. His range for Teleportation started at one-hundred miles and it was now at a thousand miles. Time Stop went from an hour to three hours, and invisibility had gone from sixty minutes to three hours. The most recent enablement he got was Anonymity. It was a passive enablement which meant he would not leave any identifiable information such as fingerprints, DNA, or loose strands of hair while invisible or after a teleportation. Anonymity turned into a huge time saver when he went into environments where he would normally wear gloves, tight clothing, and hair nets.

Cody tented his fingers and stopped time. He then teleported to a house he had been to twice before. Nine months earlier a drug kingpin, El Sucio, had gotten off because of a legal technicality. The police had failed to read him the full text of his Miranda rights when he was arrested. To make matters worse, El Suicio’s lawyer was able to get the key evidence thrown out due to an illegal search which weakened any future trial.

After El Sucio was released from jail, Cody’s immediate thought was to kill him for one of his daily requirements for The Onyx. However, when Cody arrived at El Sucio’s house he found him in his study with his lawyer and a woman. He paused to hear what was being said. He learned that El Sucio was not the kingpin the authorities assumed but a pawn in a much larger organization. The woman was in charge and she went by the name Beso Mortal, Deathly Kiss. Even though she outranked El Sucio it was clear that she was not the real shot-caller either.

On Cody’s first visit in December, he watched as Beso Mortal berated El Sucio for being arrested in the first place. She told him if he was anyone else, or this was any other time, he would have already been killed. But now there was too much at stake and they needed him in place. She needed him to get his act together and keep his head down so he did not attract any more attention from the cops.

After the rant, the lawyer made his exit. Cody suddenly had an idea. He followed the lawyer to his car and when the lawyer clicked the remote to unlock the door, Cody tossed a rock on the car’s hood. As the lawyer looked for the source of the noise Cody slipped into the backseat of the car.

The lawyer, having not found a source for the rock that hit his car, tossed it aside and started the car. He drove absentmindedly for a few miles before he hit heavy downtown traffic. When a traffic light flashed to yellow the lawyer slowed the car to a stop just behind the crosswalk. Cody pulled out a burner gun and shot the lawyer in the back of the head when the car came to a full stop. He exited the car and left the gun. Beso Mortal wanted a low profile. This was going to be just the opposite.

On Cody’s current trip, he was heading to El Sucio’s house on a fact-gathering mission. Over the past couple of months he had killed two messengers and three mid-level dealers. Those five kills had the desired effect. The police kept their interest in El Suicio but were now convinced he was not the one they were really interested in catching. The cops and feds working the case were now focused on finding a way to bag El Suicio on a substantial charge which would then entice him to flip on the higher-ups.

El Sucio was in his office when Cody teleported into the room. Time Stop meant he could move freely in the room and not worry about displacing anything that would give away his presence as the room would snap back into place when time restarted.

It took less than ten minutes for Cody to find three new names that were current choke points of information in El Suicio’s network. He would take them out in the next few weeks to continue creating havoc. Before he restarted time, Cody left the house and found a bicycle that was usually leaning against a wall. He used it to ride about five miles to his current target’s house.