Demon Hunter
Prologue
I had just finished a job in Hong Kong. Kou Sying, another business tycoon who made the wrong connections. It was a simple job, big shots tended to be careless. The power got to their head and they thought themselves invincible. That is why he had been walking alone that day. Queen’s Road had been bustling, hundreds of people hurrying to their next destination. Sying hadn’t been hard to spot. He was walking in the opposite direction. He was getting closer and closer as each second passed. It looked as though he was in the middle of a business deal, talking heatedly with someone over the phone. He didn’t seem to notice me walking toward him with my hand reaching into my jacket. As we passed each other I heard him stop, his cell phone crashing to the ground. No one had noticed the man fall, they were all to preoccupied with their own daily routines. And I walked away knowing that there was one less businessman in Wan Chai.
My name is Randall King, Randy for short. I was never the sharpest tool in the shed, but I managed to(barely) graduate from high school when I was nineteen. I had gone into the Army right after High School. At the time it had seemed like my only option, as I had no money to go to college. I went through training camp like all the other cadets and managed to find myself over in Afghanistan for two years. One day while I was patrolling the city I saw a young boy around ten years old staring back at me. His eyes were wide with fear, and I told him it was going to be okay. He looked lost, parents probably caught in the crossfire like so many in this god forsaken war. As I was trying to comfort him, a bullet burst through his skull, and he fell revealing Private Watkins with his gun still raised. The boy had been defenseless, and I felt a sudden burst of rage. Watkins was smirking, taking pleasure in his kill. Most soldiers would have gone about their business, but I unfortunately was not most soldiers. Moments later my commanding officer found me, the dead child, and Watkins with a body filled with lead.
After receiving a dishonorable discharge, I had been sent to the Army Regional Confinement Facility in Colorado. I spent twenty years locked up, and when I was released I had no money and no chance of ever finding employment. Homeless, jobless, and penniless, I had been approached by a man who had been looking for someone to help him. He claimed to have read about my dishonorable discharge and told me that my military skill set was perfect for what he needed done. He looked back over his shoulders every 5 seconds, which would normally be a sign for me to walk the other way. But after having not eaten in days all I could think about was getting my hands on a hot meal. The man offered to pay me one thousand dollars to off who he called a “rival”. He gave me an old Army knife and quickly ran off, looking back over his shoulders for a final time.
When I arrived at my target’s location I saw one man on the street corner, selling some drugs to a teenage kid. The man looked homeless himself, with an unshaven faced and what looked to be clothes worn for weeks on end. It made it easier knowing that this guy was a scumbag, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that what I was doing was wrong. In fact, I had never enjoyed killing in the military either, except for one case that ultimately cost me everything. But it was either this or starving to death, and that made the choice that much easier. His client had laughed and it was just me and him on this abandoned street. I walked up to him and quickly thrusted the knife right under his rib cage, piercing his lung. I could hear him draw his final breath, his life disappearing in mere seconds. I checked back to see if anyone had appeared, but the street was desolate. I quickly walked to the rendezvous and met the strange man who gave me the thousand dollars he promised. He took the knife and gloves and told me he would take care of them. He walked off leaving me standing there looking at the bag of cash I had just acquired. And as I stared at the fruit of my labors a light bulb went off in my head, and I realized what my life was going to turn into.
With each kill my job had become easier and easier, my conscience slowly being drowned out by my desire to survive. I whacked a couple of drug dealers, gang members, even an abusive spouse or two. Over time I became more and more adept, and my clients were becoming more and more powerful. Eventually it stopped being about survival, and more about how there was simply nothing else I could see myself doing. I had a couple of close calls but most targets were simple and easy. That was until two years ago, when I had been contacted by a client I know only as “B”.
The man was obviously upper class. He wore an expensive suit, one that even my small fortune could not afford. We met at a café in the middle of Paris.
“It is an honor to meet you, Mr. King”
“Pleasure is all mine”
“I have heard you are one of the best in the business of…murder”
“I suppose I am”
“Here is a list of twelve names that I want killed. I will give you one million dollars for each head”
“Head?”
“You must understand Mr. King, I have to be certain that every name on that list is indeed dead. It may seem barbaric but this is simply the only way I can truly know.”
I may be a gun for hire but I still liked to think I had a shred of morality and decency. But then again, if this man was willing to pay one million dollars for each of their heads they must have done something horrible. Plus if they are already dead, they wouldn’t really need their heads anymore right? My moral compass was spinning in all directions, but my insatiable greed won out in the end.
“Alright, you’ve got a deal”
“Wonderful, we will keep in touch”
I quickly glanced at the waitress who had just tripped and looked back across the table to see an empty seat. I scanned the crowds for my client but he was nowhere in sight.
