Chapter Fourteen - I kill monsters

A whirlwind of images, sounds and sensations invaded Locke's mind, he did not know if this was the normal effect of the magic or if it was a side effect of using it on a ghost.

The boy memories was fuzzy and deep like an ocean, and Locke sank into the myriad of broken pieces, absorbing each of the twisted fragments and trying to assemble the puzzle.

Thousands of sounds, images, feelings and sensations invaded Locke's mind.

He felt the sunlight, the heat, the feeling of grass against his skin, crayons, a strong metallic smell.

The taste of sweets, mommy's voice, child's laughter, Daddy teaching how to fish, fear.

A children's song, the smell of wet grass, a squirrel climbing a tree, the feeling of sleeping in the middle of both parents, the cry of his mommy.

His mother's hands, marshmallows roasted over the fire, a worn tedbear, his daddy lying on the floor in a red puddle.

And then pain, pain, pain, pain and a lound laugh.

'Who is him?' Locke squeezed the question into the whirlwind of memories 'Tell me who hurt you!'

"Who are you?" the voice was weak, small and scared.

'Locke, my name is Locke' replied Locke 'What is your name?'

"Tim..."

'Tim, who did this to you?'

"No, I don't wanna remember, I don't wanna! I don't wanna!"

'Tim, please, you have to tell me, he has to pay for this!'

"No, no, no, no, he will hurt you too! He hurt my mommy and daddy, he hurts everyone! "

'No Tim!' Locke's tone was serious, but more than he intended. 'He can't hurt me, I'm... i'm a superhero!'

"A hero? Like supaman?"

'Yea! you can tell me! I'm going to finish off the bad guy!'

"It was ... it was the smiling man, he took me from my mommy and hurt me, he hurt me so much that I was like that!"

The whirlwind of images and sounds began to calm down, the images began to show a family traveling in a car on a mountain road, they arrived at a hut, they spent the day playing and fishing in the river, at night they were outside eating sweets around the fire and them, they went to sleep together in the same bed, a noise at night woke the parents and the boy, the father went out to see while the child was in the mother's arms, the mother started singing with the child to soothes her fear away when they heard a scream.

The mother tried to call the police, but a man broke into the room and grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out, the boy tried to help his mother, but the man hit his head and everything went black... when the boy woke up he was chained on a beam, a man with an evil smile was looking at him.

"I can't show it anymore, I can't, I don't want to feel any more pain !!!!"

'It's Enough Tim...' Locke replied to the boy 'You are so brave, you don't have to show me anymore'

The man's face was etched in Locke's mind.

"I couldn't save my mommy, I always told daddy I was going to protect her like him, but I couldn't..."

'Don't worry Tim, it's not your fault, you can rest now, I'll put an end to this'

"Thank you Locke, be careful... don't let the smiling man catch you"

'I'll get him first'

The whirlwind began to disappear and Locke came back to reality.

"LOCKE! LOCKE! Are you ok? What did you do? the boy was appeased after that!" Tia asked desperately.

Locke fell to his knees, the rebound of using memory seek on a ghost had been greater than he expected, he had to work hard not to vomit the entire contents of his stomach.

"What did you do?" Tia asked.

"I saw his memories, and I felt all of them too... And i made a promisse"

"What will we do now?"

Locke's eyes shone in golden amber, his expression obscured by the night.

"We are going to hunt!"

***

Brandon was happy, life was good, very good.

Lady Luck smiled at him again, on the first day in the city he found this hut empty, three days after lodging a family arrived, they had brought everything he needed, gasoline for the generator, food and a 'little piggy', they didn't even noticed his presence until it was too late, he had a lot of fun with that little pig, a pity that hadn't lasted... Brandon carried a paper bag with beer and booze, he sat on the living room sofa, looking at the fireplace he took a big sip of booze, the piglet's and his parents remains had been left in several different dumpsters around the city, he laughed at the thought that when the Blues found the bodies he would be far away, ready to play with new piggies.

"One Little Pigs, rolling in the mud, going squishy squashy, squishy squashy, it sure felt good!" Brandon started to sing jokingly, dancing and wiggling around the cabin. "Farmer Brandon took the pig out and cleaned him up nice! Now there are no pigs rolling in the mud!"

He laughed at the memories of the child's screams, with the memmory of all the other children screams.

"What city should I go to now?" he asked loudly to himself.

The Lights suddenly went out, taking Brandon out of his delirium.

"Hmm?"

He walked over to the cabin wall, flicking the switch he tried to turn on the lights.

"Damn it! F*cking Generator!" Brandom shouted, spitting on the floor.

He picked up a carabine and left the cabin. "Why didn't that b*tch put the generator inside the house?"

He left and went to the back of the hut, a small cement structure guarded the generator, Brandom opened the hatch and saw that it was off, he checked the fuel and found it was still quite full.

"How did that turn off?"

"I hung up" replied a male voice to Brandom.

Brandom turned quickly, startled, "Who's there?" he searched for the voice, pointing the gun to all corners without being able to find anyone in the darkness "I am armed!"

No answer sounded back, he continued to search around when a sound of a high-speed object crossed the night, Brandom tried to turn around but the object was too fast, a black sphere hit his arm so hard that his bone broke, the carabine was launched with the impact, erroneously shooting in nothing.

Brandom fell to his knees holding his left arm broken, a piece of bone had come out, no sign of what hit him "SHIT! YOU MOTHERF*CKER! YOU HAVE BROKEN MY ARM! " he tried to pick up the carabine on the ground when another black sphere hit the gun, stronger than the previos one, breaking the weapon "WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT? WHO HELL ARE YOU?"

Brandom tried to run, another ball hit his right thigh, faster than the first, slower than the second, his body bounced against the wall with the impact, his femur was broken and blood was running down his leg. "F*CK! WHO ARE YOU? WHO ARE YOU?"

Brandom crawled to the front of the cabin, it was difficult with just one arm and one leg. "What the hell is going on? Who's doing this? "

Another sphere hit Brandom between the ribs, the impact made him roll, his broken limbs ached like hell, he was lying on his back, coughing blood from his lips, but now he could see something inexplicable.

There were four black spheres floating in the air, all the size of a fist, they spun in a circle in the air, above Brandom.

"What the f*ck is that? What the hell is that?" Brandom wept in despair.

"Punishment" answered the male voice.

The spheres began to fall like hammers, hitting Brandom's body and rising again, in a sequence of continuous attacks. Brandom's body bowed and twisted at the flood of blows, his grunts and cries muffled by the impacts.

"Stop... stop please..." Brandom managed to squeeze the plead through his broken teeth.

The spheres stopped falling and returned to float in the air in a circle.

"Answer me, how many times have you been asked to stop?" the male voice sounded again, this time Brandom could see him, the man looked like a black shadow, his face was covered by his hood, his strange glowing golden eyes was the only visible thing "Did you ever stoped?"

"You don't understand ... I ... I can't help it ... when ... when I see a little pig-" The sentence was cut off by a powerful impact on Brandom stomach, one of the spheres had descended with absurd force, Brandom twisted himself in a fetal position, spitting more and more blood out of his mouth.

"DON'T CALL THEM THAT! THEY WERE CHILDREN! INNOCET CHILDREN!" the man with golden eyes was furious, his eyes shone more than ever, the spheres descended in three more attacks, avoiding vital points, it seemed that the man wanted to make his punishment last as long as possible, but Brandom felt that if he continued like this he would die.

"Pity... pity me please..." Brandom tried his last card, pleading for the man emotions "I'm... I'm sick ... sick in the head... I need help... you can't just kill me! "

"Really? Is that what you think? Why?" the man with the golden eyes asked in a tone of scorn.

"Yes ... it's.. it's the law! People cannot kill people!" shouted Brandom without remembering his own hypocrisy.

"You are rigth! I can't kill people!" replied the man.

Brandom smiled thinking that he had gotten away with it, but the man wasn't finished.

"I kill monsters."

Brandom smile fade away

"And you are a monster."

The spheres began to fall without any mercy.

***

Azalea Moongraves was sitting at her desk, in her hands she had a problematic case file.

In the early hours of Monday, just before two in the morning, the central had received an anonymous call made from a burn phone informing about the remains of a child in a trash can, after dispatched the police found the body and recognized the signature of a serial killer, The Skinner.

"I hate theses dumbs names" Azalea sighs.

The Skinner was a headache for the police, his modus operandi was always the same, he found a nuclear family that had only one son, attacked his parents and kidnapped the boy, after that he kills the boy through live skinning, he then dumpes the remains of the parents and the child in three different locations, fleeing to the next city.

The bastard was more slippery than an eel, his wanderings had no right pattern and the media did not forgive every time an attack took place.

Azalea prayed to the day this bastard would attack someone in her city would never come, but that day had come, they used all their abilities to avoid making the murder public, it was the first time that one of the bodies had been found just a few hours later of the murder and the police was trying all they have to find the criminal before his eventual escape. His plans, however, went downhill, on Tuesday morning am message was left on the glass of a police vehicle, just a piece of paper printed.

- The criminal's body is on pine creek mountain, in a hut in the XXXXXXXX XXXXXXXX coordinates -

The police was sent to investigate and found a body of a man, the body was in a deplorable state, almost all of his bones are broken and smashed, as if a blunt weapon had hit him several times.

Through the crossing of evidence and DNA they discovered that the body belonged to Brandom Chikatilo, his background demonstrated all she expected, animal cruelty, violence, heavy drinking and the usual. Chikatilo kept pieces from the victims skins and his presence can be traced in all attacks, with analysis of the samples they managed to confirm that he was the skinner.

The problem was that someone had get Brandom first, not if that such sh*t was going to be missed by mankind, but the media would fall hard on the police, even more so because they had no clue of who is the vigilante.

There were no fingerprints, the coroner had no idea what the murder weapon was and the calls and note were untraceable, whoever had done this had done it with mastery.

A beat sounded at her door.

"Madam, I brought the young man you called, should I let him in?"

"Oh, please!" Azalea replied to her secretary, keeping the house file in the desk drawer.

Locke entered Azalea's office, "Hello Locke, thanks for coming, please sit!"

"She got us! She got us! Deny everything! Deny everything!" the fairy was desperate.

"Mrs. Moongraves-"

"No, no, I already told you!" Azalea cut Locke's length with a smile.

"Azalea..." continued Locke, less concerned, he didn't think she suspected him. "Do you want something from me?"

"Yes Locke, I want" Azalea stood up, folding her arms behind her back "Since that time you helped Aliyah, I have been trying to integrate you into our intelligence department, I believe that someone with computer skills like yours would be very useful for our police department. "

She walked over to a cupboard next door and pulled out a file folder

"For some reason my suggestion had been lost in the sea of ​​bureaucracy" she sat down again, and opened the folder "I must confess that even I, myself, forgot about it, until I saw you at Hanna's party"

She took a document out of the folder and handed it to Locke.

"What I have to offer you is something simple, it is a special contract for a police consultant, when we need your expertise we will contact you, and we will pay for it"

Locke took the document and started to read, the amount offered was not absurd, but it was also not low, it was higher than almost all the paid internships that Locke had seen in college, the contract also stipulated that he could working at a distance, he even offered to update his personal machinery.

"This is amazing Mrs. Moon- I mean, Azalea, but I'm just a programming student, I'm sure there are people much better than me!"

"Locke, I'll be honest with you now, I don't understand you"

"What?"

"You are a orphan and that is why you worked several jobs to support yourself. You are the best in your class, your grades are impeccable, you have anything to be called a student of honor, but still none of your teachers tried to help you, neither to get a job or a internship, you signed up by yourself for several opportunities, but always the contractors always chose other people, even less apt, or technical problems or management destroys your chances"

'It was because I used to be cursed, a f*cking curse who even kills my mom' thought Locke "I think I was unlucky, that's all"

"Unluck or not, you are good at what you do, remember that problem with Aliyah's computer?"

"Yes, I remember... that guy is a amateur, that was nothing"

"The boy you call an amateur was a rising prodigy in the Black hat community, I questioned my technicians and they all informed me that it would take days to do what you did, you solved the problem in an hour" Azalea's tone was Serious. "Locke, I am not offering this opportunity without reason, I have made all of my technicians investigate you and all find no trace of misuse of your skills has been found, I really need someone like you, so what do you say?"

Locke smiled awkwardly and reread the document "And am I going to have all this freedom? Why?"

"I don't know, I just felt that if I had a strict contract you would bail out... I promise you, as long as you don't use your skills for evil I will give you freedom, I only ask that you answer my call when I need it."

"I'm in."