CHAPTER 56: ANOTHER VICTIM
“HOLY SHIT!” Jones shouts at the top of his lungs.
They both quickly jump from their vehicle and whip out their guns. They discover a black lion lying motionless on the hood of their patrol car. They shift over to the Charger and see a hooded man stretched-out on top of the roof.
”You’re alright?” Frank asks Jones with his heart pounding against his chest.
“I’m good,” Jones says between his unsteady breaths. “My heart is racing like a son of a bitch but I’m good.”
Frank looks around himself and notice pedestrians gawking in awe at what just happened.
“Everybody, get in doors, it’s not safe,” Frank yells at them urgently.
Frank points his gun at Mane and walks closer to him, one steady step at a time. He pokes Mane’s side with his gun twice and quickly jumps back, scared that the lion may attack.
“Go check on that guy,” Frank tells Jones.
Jones walks over to the body with his gun. He lowers his gun with his right hand and uses his left to tap the side of the man’s torso. Jones is unaware that this man is not a man at all.
”Sir, are you okay?” Jones asks.
Jones cautiously maneuvers around the car and nudges on him again.
“Sir, can you hear me?” Jones asks.
Hellhound regains consciousness and looks Jones in his eyes.
“What the…fuck?” Jones says in a frightened tone.
Hellhound cuts him off by swiping his gun from his hand. The gun slides across the sidewalk. Then Hellhound swiftly grabs Jones by his neck and pulls him close. Frank sees his partner in distress and immediately focuses his attention onto Hellhound.
“Jones!” Frank shouts out in distress.
Panicked, Frank points his gun at the creature. As he chokes Detective Jones, he gets off the car and stands to his feet. The pedestrians around the area gasp at the first sight of Hellhound’s bizarre appearance.
“Drop him!” Frank warns.
“Or what, Lancaster, you’ll shoot me?” Hellhound asks while lifting Jones off his feet with one arm.
He applies pressure on Jones’s neck. Frank mind is so awestruck that he has no idea how to handle the situation. If he fires, he might hit his partner, but if he doesn’t, his partner will be strangled to death. It’s a hard decision to make.
“Time is ticking, Detective,” Hellhound says while holding his partner’s body in front of him. “Save him Lancaster, just like how you saved your brother. Come on, pull the trigger.”
“Shoot em,” Jones uses the last bit of his strength to force the words from his mouth.
Frank is scared to death right now. He’s not scared for himself but for his dear friend. The indecisiveness is driving him mad.
“Say goodnight,” Hellhound says while squeezing Jones’s neck so hard that it snaps.
“NO!” Frank shouts.
Hellhound thrust Jones’s body at Frank like a rag-doll. Frank is hit hard. He falls on the ground, dropping his gun in the process. Using his training skills, Frank rolls on the ground, grabbing the gun, and fires three shots at Hellhound. But it’s too late. The swift creature has already made it around the corner.
Frank doesn’t give up that easily. He jumps to his feet, sprinting with the gun at his side, rotates around the corner, and unleashes rapid shots until the clip becomes depleted. One bullet grazes Hellhound's arm. But sadly, it’s not enough to stop him from fleeing.
“Damn it,” Frank says with frustration.
Frank watches him continue down the street, climb a construction fence, and disappear behind a bulldozer. He hurries back to his partner’s body and falls onto his knees, supporting his broken neck.
“Damn it! Don’t you die on me,” Frank tells him.
Frank uses one arm to support Jones’s head and the other to unfasten his radio from his hip.
“Dispatch, officer down. Call the RPD and tell them an officer is down at East Avenue and Chestnut. Suspect is on the run. He’s not armed,” he says into his radio.
“It doesn’t matter,” a weak voice says next to Frank.
Slowly but surely, Mane rises off the car and leaps off with a bad limp.
“He’s still very dangerous, detective,” he says between breathing.
Frank is mesmerized by the talking lion.
“Stand back,” he warns Mane.
“I’m not here to hurt you, Frank.”
“How do you know my name?” he asks Mane with wide, frightened, eyes.
Mane continues to approach him. That’s when Frank’s survival instincts kicks in. He quickly exchanges his radio for his partner’s gun and points it at Mane, ready to fire.
“It’s me. It’s me Daniel,” Mane tells him.
“Daniel?” Frank asks confusingly.
“Remember that day when you saved me. You said you would do anything to bring my father back. We don’t have that power Frank. We can’t change the past. But we can act now and change the future. Another life is at stake, Iva’s life. One bullet won’t stop him. He must be killed. He won’t stop until she’s dead.”
He can see Frank’s hostile eyes dissolving away.
“We can save her Frank. You just have to tell me where Hellhound went. This ends today.”
Frank lowers his gun with a look of total confusion.
“Daniel, what the hell is going on?”
“There’s no time to explain. Where did Hellhound go? You must tell me now.”
“Around….the corner, I think he’s hiding out at that abandoned building.”
“Call it in. Tell them there’s a dead body found there. If I don’t kill him, I will die trying,” Mane says and then sprints around the corner with a limp.
Frank reaches for his radio and picks it up.
“Tell the RPD to meet up at the construction site on Chestnut. Tell them to expect casualties…”