Jason Pinter - The Guilty

As they placed the cop on the stretcher, I increased the magnification. I could just make out the face.

My breath left me. I dropped to my knees. Panting. Felt

Jack's hand on my shoulder. Felt the world swimming away.

Saw the face again. Saw his brother in-law's face. Both men lying in a pool of their own blood.

The downed cop was Detective Lieutenant Joe Mauser.

She was lying on her back. Propped up against three pillows.

One more across her chest. One more by her right arm. She felt warm, safe, comfortable. Henry made fun of her for this. Said she was building a fort every night. Yet when the lights went out, after Amanda had burrowed into her pillow castle, she would push the pillows aside and gently lay her head on his chest.

She would listen to Henry breathe. Listen to his heart beat.

She knew when he was thinking about a story-his heart beat a little faster. She knew if the day had been long and challenging, or fast and invigorating. All this from his heartbeat.

She would glide her finger down his chest, tickling his side.

She knew he was sensitive, but he never told her to stop.

Sometimes she would run her finger along the scar where the bullet had come so close to ending his life. She knew that in some way she was responsible for that scar. For some reason, despite the pain it had caused Henry, she was glad it was there.

She knew he was awake. His breathing was shallow.

Henry's eyes had sunk. His body looked as though it had been sapped of all energy, like one of those video game characters after some evil shaman sucks their soul right out of their body then yells something cheesy like "Fatality!"

Another death. Reporters weren't supposed to see lives end in front of them. Henry wasn't off in a tank in Iraq. How much more could he take?

Henry's breathing had grown steadier. Maybe he had fallen asleep. She hoped so.

And then the shrill noise of Henry's cell phone broke the silence, and Amanda kicked herself for forgetting to change the ring tone.

Henry didn't stir, so Amanda reached over to the nightstand and picked it up. She expected to see Wallace Langston or Jack O'Donnell calling about some urgent scoop.

But no, it was Mya Loverne. Undoubtedly calling again in the desperate and pathetic hope that her old boyfriend would return her affection. That some previously severed synapses would again begin firing.

Amanda stared at the phone and felt a terrible pressure beginning to settle behind her eyes. She pressed and held the power button until the phone went dark. Then she gathered all the pillows, held them close to her chest and hoped sleep would arrive soon.

For both of them.

The Boy sat on the bed. Elbows on his knees. Feet planted on the floor. He read the newspaper again. Third time he'd done so. Then he put it on the chipped wooden nightstand and turned off the light.

He lay in the dark. He could feel his heart beating fast. It wasn't just the thrill of the kill that did it, it was the beautiful anticipation. Then the memory of the blood.

His hands still tingled, gravel still stuck in the treads of his shoes. Amazing how he could read about himself in the newspaper mere hours after the killing, the ink drying quicker than the blood.

He thought about last week. He thought about the grave, that headstone he'd visited so many times, wanting to wrap his strong hands around the necks of all those idiots who'd stolen God knew how many marble replacements. It had gotten so bad that the graveyard proprietors had to construct a metal fence around the headstone. Didn't matter much.

They couldn't afford good metal, and twice a year some kid would use a pair of eleven-ninety-nine wire cutters and steal it just the same.

After visiting the grave for twenty years the Boy didn't care about the headstone itself. All he cared about was the bones that lay underneath. The body that lay buried in that hard earth for over a century. People thought they knew the truth. They saw movies, read books, figured they knew everything. He was here to change that. Through blood and lead, they would know the truth, and they would know exactly why he died. The Boy's legacy, and now he was being baptized in the blood of the damned.

Every now and then he would bring a fresh bullet to the grave, dig a small hole with his hands and place the ammunition inside. It's what He would have wanted-to be close to the bullets. Up until now, those bullets were the only link between them. Until Athena. Until that cop. Now blood linked them, and blood was thicker than lead.

All those summers in the broiling sun, pretending to ignore his birthright. Watching that ungodly woman tarnish their family's name with that demon. He got through the day because he knew eventually the day would come when he could take up the mantle. When he could finally finally finally come out from the darkness and show the world that the throne was his now. It had merely been waiting for the new blood to carry it into the new century.

You'd think things would have changed in a hundred and thirty years, the Boy would say to the headstone. He would always say it out loud. He didn't care who heard him. If he didn't have the courage to take a few errant glances, he wouldn't be able to pull the trigger when the time came. You'd think they'd have changed, but they haven't. A hundred and thirty years and you'd be so sick of it you'd dust your guns off, brush all that dirt off your old, old bones and do what I'm doing.

His hands and legs ached. The rifle had a mean kick. The

Boy hadn't gotten a chance to practice much with it, but the gun was every bit as true as he knew it would be. That gun had a reputation, and not the kind that came from some pussy who talked his own game up. This was the kind of rep that came through force, violence and blood.

He looked around the room. Grime covered the walls, and he could hear insects scurrying behind the plaster. Nothing bothered him. He tapped the rifle with his fingers and thought about the next kill.

He'd read the newspapers that morning. Read the ongoing coverage of Athena's murder. Only today it was sparring for coverage with the murder of Joe Mauser. He was surprised to see that he'd killed the cop rather than the mayor. But the more he read about this cop, the better he felt. He read how the cop tracked down and nearly killed an innocent reporter named Henry Parker. The same Henry Parker whose words the Boy had used before killing Athena Paradis.

The Boy read about how the death of officer Joe Mauser's brother-in-law had driven Mauser over the edge, how he relentlessly pursued Parker across the country before nearly dying at the hands of the real killer. And even though the

Boy's bullet hadn't been meant for Mauser, fate was on his side. Joe Mauser was just as guilty as the rest of them.

The Boy looked out the window at the night sky, the beauty that was so close, and the beauty that he would help create.

Then he closed his eyes, dreamt of blood, blood that purified, blood that seeped back into an old, old grave. He dreamt that he was lying in the grave next to the man whose legacy he was carrying on, and the Boy slept in peace.

I'd only met with a medical examiner once in my career as a reporter, and that was back in Oregon when I covered a B and E that turned ugly when the home owner confronted the burglar. The home owner was stabbed twice in the chest, the knife stolen from his own bedroom. The ME confirmed the murder weapon was some fancy German blade, which the victim had bought on the black market. I ended up uncovering an unauthorized dealer ring in Portland, and was subsequently nominated for a Payne journalism award. The ME in

Portland was a woman in her midforties, professional as hell, and willing to part with any and all information I needed for my story. From that encounter I assumed most MEs were similarly professional.