Post by The Saint on Jan 2, 2018 17:33:29 GMT -5
The morning had started by waking up in his small one bedroom loft, which was roughly twelve hundred square feet. Through the front door into his apartment complex, was an immediate greeting by the lack of furniture aside from a pair of desks slid against the wall to the right. To the immediate left was his small kitchenette, and beyond that, his bedroom and bathroom. That was pretty much it.
The walls in Johan’s apartment were white, and the lights were sparsely placed LED bulbs with a white balance of fifty-hundred. So, everything was almost grim. It was the kind of place people do not get surprised when death and dismemberment show up on the ten O’clock news. The bedroom had a bed, a small closet, which housed Johan’s more western-like attire. Complete with multiple sets of boots, both combat and cowboy, and a pair of leather dusters in black and brown as well as all his hats.
His gun-safe was on the bottom of his closet, which housed some of his more fancy toys and pistols. Which included, but was in no way limited to, a benelli super eight chambered in twelve gauge with a set of rail loaders, one with three rock, three slugs and the other with five buckshot and one barrel torch. A Heckler and Koch SL8 with a short stock, G36c lock rail tactical system alongside a three frame eotech loch sight. The slide vent and bolt carrier had both been replaced for better flow-through. As well as an assortment of Kimber SiS with different modifications, a pair of Colt Single-Action Armys, and a consecutive serial number set of Smith and Wesson Model 8 Russians. The last gun was his Heckler and Koch UMP, Eotech Holo 8 tac rails with a strobe. Most of his weapons were chambered in forty-five ACP which made it easy to procure ammunition.
Johan’s wake up routine was as lost as he always was. He would wake up from a nightmare hearing voices, names and sins. Take a quick cold shower after studying a picture of his wife and daughter, never forget what mattered most. Then he would brush his teeth, move over his toiletries which included old spice desperado scent for most of his ensemble. After which he wondered himself out of the bathroom and looked annoyed more than anything.
One thing Johan had taught himself working for law enforcement was getting dressed quickly. Many times he would button his shirt and tie his tie in the car or heading to his destination and simply toss on jeans, socks and his boots as quick as he could. Everything else was thrown on in haste and then patted down to look decent later.
Checking his firearm, which consisted of a routine done thousands of times, Johan set the safety and the slide lock. His fingers moved from the trigger guard to both safeties to make sure they had been locked in the right position. He moved his forefinger and his thumb to check the firing pin and the slide. Swapped the carrier lock to inspect the barrel and with his free hand slid a clip of forty-five Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition. He placed the weapon in its holster and slid it into his belt. The Kydex holster slid carefully into place and then Johan left the apartment, grabbing his hat on the way out.
Each of Johan’s movements to lock the house were quick and controlled. He was from the wrong time period, Johan was a gunfighter who was born about a hundred and forty years later than where he belonged. He pulled his phone and checked it, looking at the picture of his daughter and his wife and stepping out into the rain.
Johan walked down the street, his movements were somber, they always had been. When his daughter and wife had died, he had given up on most of the normal looks of being human. Johan stuck to the bags under-eyes, and constantly hatred of everything attitude. At least, when he was not bringing the wrath of god down on the sinners of the world.
To be honest, that was probably the only time his natural scowl went away long enough to be considered still human. That and he had not seen either of their graves since he had stopped drinking his life away and went back to work chasing serial killers and things that go bump in the night. To Johan, the world was constantly at four AM, not enough time to go back to sleep, but just enough time to bore you to the core.
Johan Saint had his head slightly tilted down to let the rain fall off his hat. It was early that morning, and he had done just about everything he needed to in order to get his day started. Though his schedule had been put back a little bit the man was relaxed for the most part.
Each step he took let his boots slowly move the water in small splashes. There was a subtle grace to watching rain, and seeing the lights reflect off the water and oil on the street from tires. It was almost illuminating, almost beautiful. If Johan had retained more of his humanity, it would have been. Though, death tended to do that to some. They die a little more each time they talk or think about what death took from them no matter how good things may seem to look up.
Johan wondered into the home office in Lyon, France. He did not even stop at the double doors to look up at the large building. Johan simply pushed his way in and scanned his badge. He showed the guards his side-arm and wondered past the lobby into the elevators and his office sat up on the eleventh floor in special investigations. He looked tired, then again Johan always looked tired. The past few weeks had been spent by Johan chasing down a serial killer that was using the Autobahn to move freely around Europe to find new victims. Johan had caught up to him somewhere in Germany, near a castle. He was thinking back to the arrest as he stepped into the elevator.
"The fuck is that hat?" The guy in the elevator said as Johan looked at him with a look that could have ripped the paint off of a hundred-thousand dollar sports car. He reached his hand down to hit the button for his floor as he scanned his badge. Johan turned back towards the exit to the elevator and held the door, his partner wondered into elevator. She was a normal sized Asian woman, former cop out of the ATF. Koi was not tall, she was only about five foot two, however she had the eyes that had seen things that humanity was not meant to see. Her face accented her eyes in a soft round shape, her forehead was a little over-accented from her pulled back hair. She had a little extra weight but it did not show because of the muscles she had developed and kept in use. Her hair was dark black and straight, always pulled back with a headband. Johan thought that was to deal with her ability to shoot. While Johan could pull at the speed of a cheetah on cocaine, Koi originally doubled as a Special Weapons and Tactics sniper, before she was promoted in to the Alcohol Tobacco Firearms as a profiler and analyst. They had been transferred around the same time to Special Investigations for Interpol. The young woman was about five years younger than Johan, wore a full pantsuit, her sidearm favored back to the current model of Heckler and Koch chambered in forty-five.
"Adrian, did you finish the paperwork for the killer in Germany." She asked, with a hint of spite in her voice. That had come from a year of leaving most of the paperwork to her. Koi was a Psychological Profile Expert back when she was working for the ATF. Johan just did not really care about paperwork or anything like it. "I swear, if you didn't." Koi said, annoyed at him without him even responding.
"I got it done, don't worry, for once I did my job." Johan said in his southern accent. The guy behind Johan mocked him in Spanish, he ignored it. Johan was a real cowboy, and his service record with both Interpol and the FBI proved it. Johan was famous for gunfights, and getting shot on an occasion or two.
The elevator music was quiet, playing some easy listening piano jazz as it dinged at the seventh floor and the man scooted past Johan, who continued his glare as if the guy had overstepped himself with the comments. As the door slowly closed Johan paused for a second and listened to God's voice as he stared at the smaller agent. "Blackmail, Theft." God told him as Johan realized the elevator had dinged at the eleventh floor. Johan gestured his hand out to his partner and let Koi walk towards their office. They passed the main desk for Special Investigations and before they could even get to their office. The saw their boss, looking out of the glass door into his office raise a hand and usher them in.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Koi said and Johan cursed under his breath as he walked to the African gentlemen who ran their department's office. Roland Joyce was from Congo, but he spoke English probably better than Johan. He went to Oxford and studied criminology and psychology like Koi. Roland also looked like he could beat the everliving hell out of anyone that was smaller than him. Though, at two-eighty-five and six four, there weren't many people that had been smaller than him. He got the job catching a truck driver who had gone around Africa butchering little girls. Rolan himself was a dark shade of Ebony and had people issues. He was in his mid fifties, though Johan would never ask exactly how old he was as that kind of thing was not something you discussed with Roland. The weirder part about Roland, aside from the muscles that should be reserved for a heisman award college football star, was the fact that every rumor had Roland beating things to death with his bare hands.
"Good job last week. And thank you for getting your shit done for once Adrian and for not killing the perp, I have to put you both back into the field, effective immediately." Roland said being straight to the point as he sat at his desk. His hand guestured to the number of chairs that sat across from his stained oak desk, which Johan was pretty sure cost more than everything in his and Koi's office put together. The three made a bit of small talk and usual greetings before anyone said anything that really was pertinent to the situation at hand.
Koi looked like she was going to ask before Roland interrupted her faster than she could speak. "We have twelve bodies, five in Japan, two in China, one in India and the rest in Germany." Roland explained and handed over a large file box, Johan sighed and looked at it. Roland pulled out pictures of the victims.
"Jesus christ." Koi said as she looked at the first two pictures. Johan looked at them two and something itched at the back of his mind when he saw the photos. The victims, all of them had been torn apart. Split at the naval and it looked like by sheer force. Which was impossible to do with bare hands. "Holy fuck." Koi said as Johan studied the pictures more clearly. The internal organs were, missing or gored, as if the ones that had been gored were being torn out of the way of them getting to some part that mattered. Roland stared almost as if he did not need to say anything more and leaned back in his chair. Someone knocked on the door and Johan and Koi turned to see the Interpol director of special investigations and they quickly told Roland they were on it and left the room. No sense in getting between the boss and his boss. Johan took the file binder and the box and walked with it towards the small corner office that him and Koi shared.
Interpol Special Investigations was specifically for things like serial killers, and criminals that could not be touched because of corruption or bribery. The group, while small, put together a constant stream of top profile cases and gave the arrests and the evidence off to other departments with whatever country they ended up or needed the individuals caught by. Koi shut the door and looked at he picture again. "These wounds are all brute force, and people aren't this strong." She told Johan who simply shrugged.
"Well, you never know. Might be lots of people that strong, we just haven' met 'em." Johan stated and the two spent the next ten hours reading paperwork, crime scene reports, and everything ever about the grisly murders. Eventually, though, it was time to leave for the night, the most they had managed to do was figure out that the target was one hell of a sicko, and that the easiest way to describe the wounds would in fact, have been hands. The problem with that was humans were not that strong. At least, to Koi they weren't. Johan already knew he was on the trail of what would certainly be as spiritual beast of some kind. Johan headed back to his apartment, he had the next two days off and brought the investigation with him. He and Koi were leaving probably in two or three days to talk to some of the detectives from countries that had been part of the cases to date.
The next morning, Johan caught a train into Paris proper. He headed to a known bar that housed a cocaine and stash house for mob. The closer he got, the more he could hear the voice. Johan reveled in it. That voice was everything to him now. He simply stood in the plaza nearby for a while and listened. Thief, Blackmail, Rapist, Thief, Bribery, Extortion, Murder. No matter where he looked, there was always someone Sinning. Johan had forgone his usual work attire that morning for an outfit he liked for this part of his life. A simple t-shirt, faded Jeans, black boots and an old fashioned duster. He strode into the dive bar with his hat tilted down over his eyes.
There were one or two patrons, real ones, and one was obviously high as Johan's boots hit the floor with each step, almost echoing supernaturally loud. Johan wondered up to the barman and looked him over. MURDER, EXTORTION, RAPE, MONSTER. He grinned, almost as if he was having the best day ever. Johan had long sense forgotten what a real smile was like, his was entirely a joke. This world was hideous. "Shot of bourbon?" He asked the bartender and waited, he sat down on the chair, his duster, seemed to rise up to slide the stool under him as he sat back and relaxed. The shot came quickly and he looked up at the man, two very angry and large looking french gentlemen in suits came out of the back. "Radley Thurough, you must have heard of me." He said to the barmen and looked at the two men who were staring at Johan like it was time to leave.
"You're the one they call the Walking Man. I know the outfit." The barman said in broken english. Johan laughed and smiled. "Oh, then you know why I'm here, but if you want to be specific, maybe that ten year old girl you raped last week could refresh your mind? Or the hundreds that buy your poison, or maybe even the six you've murdered for one reason or another. Now, Radley, I've killed hundreds, and like all of them. You, and everyone else in here, is gonna die and die bloody." Johan said as he suddenly focused. The men pulled a pair of guns on Johan and Johan just laughed. Radley looked like he was not going to be intimidated. The soft music in the bar did nothing to hide the sound of gunshots in the less than reputable neighborhood.
Johan walked out a few minutes later, whistling and old country and western song as his boots clacked against the road, simply walking, right back home.
A day later....
Johan was relaxing while overlooking the river, sitting on a bench as he yawned loudly he stretched a bit and wondered what to do on his second day off. He looked in the paper and sure enough, after a bit of sifting, a long article about a gunfight in the bad areas of Paris, where a local drug dealer and his goons, along with two patrons had been shot to death. The paper pushed the entire thing off as a mob-hit due to the overall bloody but controlled killings. Each man had been shot twice in the chest, and once in the head. Some of the wounds were bullets, and some were simply cauterized by something unknown. Quincy shots when he had run out of normal shells. Not his favorite way to do it, but it was a way to do it.
Johan relaxed, and reached down to his side to grab his piece of quiche that he had taken for lunch from a local cafe and decided to eat.
2941
The walls in Johan’s apartment were white, and the lights were sparsely placed LED bulbs with a white balance of fifty-hundred. So, everything was almost grim. It was the kind of place people do not get surprised when death and dismemberment show up on the ten O’clock news. The bedroom had a bed, a small closet, which housed Johan’s more western-like attire. Complete with multiple sets of boots, both combat and cowboy, and a pair of leather dusters in black and brown as well as all his hats.
His gun-safe was on the bottom of his closet, which housed some of his more fancy toys and pistols. Which included, but was in no way limited to, a benelli super eight chambered in twelve gauge with a set of rail loaders, one with three rock, three slugs and the other with five buckshot and one barrel torch. A Heckler and Koch SL8 with a short stock, G36c lock rail tactical system alongside a three frame eotech loch sight. The slide vent and bolt carrier had both been replaced for better flow-through. As well as an assortment of Kimber SiS with different modifications, a pair of Colt Single-Action Armys, and a consecutive serial number set of Smith and Wesson Model 8 Russians. The last gun was his Heckler and Koch UMP, Eotech Holo 8 tac rails with a strobe. Most of his weapons were chambered in forty-five ACP which made it easy to procure ammunition.
Johan’s wake up routine was as lost as he always was. He would wake up from a nightmare hearing voices, names and sins. Take a quick cold shower after studying a picture of his wife and daughter, never forget what mattered most. Then he would brush his teeth, move over his toiletries which included old spice desperado scent for most of his ensemble. After which he wondered himself out of the bathroom and looked annoyed more than anything.
One thing Johan had taught himself working for law enforcement was getting dressed quickly. Many times he would button his shirt and tie his tie in the car or heading to his destination and simply toss on jeans, socks and his boots as quick as he could. Everything else was thrown on in haste and then patted down to look decent later.
Checking his firearm, which consisted of a routine done thousands of times, Johan set the safety and the slide lock. His fingers moved from the trigger guard to both safeties to make sure they had been locked in the right position. He moved his forefinger and his thumb to check the firing pin and the slide. Swapped the carrier lock to inspect the barrel and with his free hand slid a clip of forty-five Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition. He placed the weapon in its holster and slid it into his belt. The Kydex holster slid carefully into place and then Johan left the apartment, grabbing his hat on the way out.
Each of Johan’s movements to lock the house were quick and controlled. He was from the wrong time period, Johan was a gunfighter who was born about a hundred and forty years later than where he belonged. He pulled his phone and checked it, looking at the picture of his daughter and his wife and stepping out into the rain.
Johan walked down the street, his movements were somber, they always had been. When his daughter and wife had died, he had given up on most of the normal looks of being human. Johan stuck to the bags under-eyes, and constantly hatred of everything attitude. At least, when he was not bringing the wrath of god down on the sinners of the world.
To be honest, that was probably the only time his natural scowl went away long enough to be considered still human. That and he had not seen either of their graves since he had stopped drinking his life away and went back to work chasing serial killers and things that go bump in the night. To Johan, the world was constantly at four AM, not enough time to go back to sleep, but just enough time to bore you to the core.
Johan Saint had his head slightly tilted down to let the rain fall off his hat. It was early that morning, and he had done just about everything he needed to in order to get his day started. Though his schedule had been put back a little bit the man was relaxed for the most part.
Each step he took let his boots slowly move the water in small splashes. There was a subtle grace to watching rain, and seeing the lights reflect off the water and oil on the street from tires. It was almost illuminating, almost beautiful. If Johan had retained more of his humanity, it would have been. Though, death tended to do that to some. They die a little more each time they talk or think about what death took from them no matter how good things may seem to look up.
Johan wondered into the home office in Lyon, France. He did not even stop at the double doors to look up at the large building. Johan simply pushed his way in and scanned his badge. He showed the guards his side-arm and wondered past the lobby into the elevators and his office sat up on the eleventh floor in special investigations. He looked tired, then again Johan always looked tired. The past few weeks had been spent by Johan chasing down a serial killer that was using the Autobahn to move freely around Europe to find new victims. Johan had caught up to him somewhere in Germany, near a castle. He was thinking back to the arrest as he stepped into the elevator.
"The fuck is that hat?" The guy in the elevator said as Johan looked at him with a look that could have ripped the paint off of a hundred-thousand dollar sports car. He reached his hand down to hit the button for his floor as he scanned his badge. Johan turned back towards the exit to the elevator and held the door, his partner wondered into elevator. She was a normal sized Asian woman, former cop out of the ATF. Koi was not tall, she was only about five foot two, however she had the eyes that had seen things that humanity was not meant to see. Her face accented her eyes in a soft round shape, her forehead was a little over-accented from her pulled back hair. She had a little extra weight but it did not show because of the muscles she had developed and kept in use. Her hair was dark black and straight, always pulled back with a headband. Johan thought that was to deal with her ability to shoot. While Johan could pull at the speed of a cheetah on cocaine, Koi originally doubled as a Special Weapons and Tactics sniper, before she was promoted in to the Alcohol Tobacco Firearms as a profiler and analyst. They had been transferred around the same time to Special Investigations for Interpol. The young woman was about five years younger than Johan, wore a full pantsuit, her sidearm favored back to the current model of Heckler and Koch chambered in forty-five.
"Adrian, did you finish the paperwork for the killer in Germany." She asked, with a hint of spite in her voice. That had come from a year of leaving most of the paperwork to her. Koi was a Psychological Profile Expert back when she was working for the ATF. Johan just did not really care about paperwork or anything like it. "I swear, if you didn't." Koi said, annoyed at him without him even responding.
"I got it done, don't worry, for once I did my job." Johan said in his southern accent. The guy behind Johan mocked him in Spanish, he ignored it. Johan was a real cowboy, and his service record with both Interpol and the FBI proved it. Johan was famous for gunfights, and getting shot on an occasion or two.
The elevator music was quiet, playing some easy listening piano jazz as it dinged at the seventh floor and the man scooted past Johan, who continued his glare as if the guy had overstepped himself with the comments. As the door slowly closed Johan paused for a second and listened to God's voice as he stared at the smaller agent. "Blackmail, Theft." God told him as Johan realized the elevator had dinged at the eleventh floor. Johan gestured his hand out to his partner and let Koi walk towards their office. They passed the main desk for Special Investigations and before they could even get to their office. The saw their boss, looking out of the glass door into his office raise a hand and usher them in.
"Don't say I didn't warn you." Koi said and Johan cursed under his breath as he walked to the African gentlemen who ran their department's office. Roland Joyce was from Congo, but he spoke English probably better than Johan. He went to Oxford and studied criminology and psychology like Koi. Roland also looked like he could beat the everliving hell out of anyone that was smaller than him. Though, at two-eighty-five and six four, there weren't many people that had been smaller than him. He got the job catching a truck driver who had gone around Africa butchering little girls. Rolan himself was a dark shade of Ebony and had people issues. He was in his mid fifties, though Johan would never ask exactly how old he was as that kind of thing was not something you discussed with Roland. The weirder part about Roland, aside from the muscles that should be reserved for a heisman award college football star, was the fact that every rumor had Roland beating things to death with his bare hands.
"Good job last week. And thank you for getting your shit done for once Adrian and for not killing the perp, I have to put you both back into the field, effective immediately." Roland said being straight to the point as he sat at his desk. His hand guestured to the number of chairs that sat across from his stained oak desk, which Johan was pretty sure cost more than everything in his and Koi's office put together. The three made a bit of small talk and usual greetings before anyone said anything that really was pertinent to the situation at hand.
Koi looked like she was going to ask before Roland interrupted her faster than she could speak. "We have twelve bodies, five in Japan, two in China, one in India and the rest in Germany." Roland explained and handed over a large file box, Johan sighed and looked at it. Roland pulled out pictures of the victims.
"Jesus christ." Koi said as she looked at the first two pictures. Johan looked at them two and something itched at the back of his mind when he saw the photos. The victims, all of them had been torn apart. Split at the naval and it looked like by sheer force. Which was impossible to do with bare hands. "Holy fuck." Koi said as Johan studied the pictures more clearly. The internal organs were, missing or gored, as if the ones that had been gored were being torn out of the way of them getting to some part that mattered. Roland stared almost as if he did not need to say anything more and leaned back in his chair. Someone knocked on the door and Johan and Koi turned to see the Interpol director of special investigations and they quickly told Roland they were on it and left the room. No sense in getting between the boss and his boss. Johan took the file binder and the box and walked with it towards the small corner office that him and Koi shared.
Interpol Special Investigations was specifically for things like serial killers, and criminals that could not be touched because of corruption or bribery. The group, while small, put together a constant stream of top profile cases and gave the arrests and the evidence off to other departments with whatever country they ended up or needed the individuals caught by. Koi shut the door and looked at he picture again. "These wounds are all brute force, and people aren't this strong." She told Johan who simply shrugged.
"Well, you never know. Might be lots of people that strong, we just haven' met 'em." Johan stated and the two spent the next ten hours reading paperwork, crime scene reports, and everything ever about the grisly murders. Eventually, though, it was time to leave for the night, the most they had managed to do was figure out that the target was one hell of a sicko, and that the easiest way to describe the wounds would in fact, have been hands. The problem with that was humans were not that strong. At least, to Koi they weren't. Johan already knew he was on the trail of what would certainly be as spiritual beast of some kind. Johan headed back to his apartment, he had the next two days off and brought the investigation with him. He and Koi were leaving probably in two or three days to talk to some of the detectives from countries that had been part of the cases to date.
The next morning, Johan caught a train into Paris proper. He headed to a known bar that housed a cocaine and stash house for mob. The closer he got, the more he could hear the voice. Johan reveled in it. That voice was everything to him now. He simply stood in the plaza nearby for a while and listened. Thief, Blackmail, Rapist, Thief, Bribery, Extortion, Murder. No matter where he looked, there was always someone Sinning. Johan had forgone his usual work attire that morning for an outfit he liked for this part of his life. A simple t-shirt, faded Jeans, black boots and an old fashioned duster. He strode into the dive bar with his hat tilted down over his eyes.
There were one or two patrons, real ones, and one was obviously high as Johan's boots hit the floor with each step, almost echoing supernaturally loud. Johan wondered up to the barman and looked him over. MURDER, EXTORTION, RAPE, MONSTER. He grinned, almost as if he was having the best day ever. Johan had long sense forgotten what a real smile was like, his was entirely a joke. This world was hideous. "Shot of bourbon?" He asked the bartender and waited, he sat down on the chair, his duster, seemed to rise up to slide the stool under him as he sat back and relaxed. The shot came quickly and he looked up at the man, two very angry and large looking french gentlemen in suits came out of the back. "Radley Thurough, you must have heard of me." He said to the barmen and looked at the two men who were staring at Johan like it was time to leave.
"You're the one they call the Walking Man. I know the outfit." The barman said in broken english. Johan laughed and smiled. "Oh, then you know why I'm here, but if you want to be specific, maybe that ten year old girl you raped last week could refresh your mind? Or the hundreds that buy your poison, or maybe even the six you've murdered for one reason or another. Now, Radley, I've killed hundreds, and like all of them. You, and everyone else in here, is gonna die and die bloody." Johan said as he suddenly focused. The men pulled a pair of guns on Johan and Johan just laughed. Radley looked like he was not going to be intimidated. The soft music in the bar did nothing to hide the sound of gunshots in the less than reputable neighborhood.
Johan walked out a few minutes later, whistling and old country and western song as his boots clacked against the road, simply walking, right back home.
A day later....
Johan was relaxing while overlooking the river, sitting on a bench as he yawned loudly he stretched a bit and wondered what to do on his second day off. He looked in the paper and sure enough, after a bit of sifting, a long article about a gunfight in the bad areas of Paris, where a local drug dealer and his goons, along with two patrons had been shot to death. The paper pushed the entire thing off as a mob-hit due to the overall bloody but controlled killings. Each man had been shot twice in the chest, and once in the head. Some of the wounds were bullets, and some were simply cauterized by something unknown. Quincy shots when he had run out of normal shells. Not his favorite way to do it, but it was a way to do it.
Johan relaxed, and reached down to his side to grab his piece of quiche that he had taken for lunch from a local cafe and decided to eat.
2941
