Niklosi's Nightmare (First Wave Book 10) (2 page)

BJ knew when she first spoke to
Jepson that she was most likely dealing with the local kids and had really
hoped to catch them so she could put a stop to their harassment of the older
man. She grinned as she realized it was going to work out better than she’d
planned as the footsteps came closer to the car.

The rustling she’d first heard was
now loud crashing sounds as someone tore through the heavily wooded area to the
left of the road. The closer the sounds came, the more BJ realized that
whatever was running wasn’t trying to scare anyone with the racket they were
making.

More curious than concerned, BJ
peered above the hood of her car as the sounds came closer. She could hear
labored breathing and a second runner behind the first. Since she’d already
assumed there was more than one prankster, it didn’t surprise her to hear more than
one set of footfalls heading her way.

Counting the seconds between the
footfalls, BJ tried to determine the length of the stride of the runners but
gave up when it kept coming out all wrong. She knew the kids couldn’t be that
big.

Bigfoot isn’t that big
, she
thought with a snort.

Moments later, she was left
speechless as a large man leaped from the woods into the middle of the dirt
road. The man’s incredibly long stride was taking him across the rest of the
single lane road when several loud shots rang out through the night, and he
suddenly crumpled in the middle of the road.

BJ stood and grabbed her gun,
drawing the weapon and pointing it in the direction the shots had come from as
the other footsteps came closer through the woods.

“You stupid asshole! Making me
chase you through this hellhole! What is that smell? Is that you? No, it can’t
be you, because you smell like dead asshole!”

A tall, dark-haired man stomped
into the middle of the road in front of the fallen man and kicked him twice in
the ribs before wiping his boots off on him. Everything happened so fast, and
BJ watched in horror as the man knelt down next to the body and held something
to it that glowed brightly for a moment, causing her to shield her eyes from
the glare.

When she opened her eyes again, the
running man’s body looked like something from a bad horror movie. It was
completely desiccated, as if ready to crumble to dust at any moment. This was
proved seconds later when the tall man began stomping on the body and dust
began flying around.

BJ stood and aimed her gun at him.

“Police! Put the weapon down and
step back from the body! Now!” she ordered, keeping her car between herself and
the huge man, who looked shocked to see her.

“Oh this is fucking great!” Nik
muttered as he kicked the body again, sending up more dust as the entire chest
collapsed to fine particles on the ground. “Now I have to deal with the human
law. Fuck you, fuck you very much!”

“I said, put the weapon down and
step back. Now!” BJ yelled, moving around the hood of her car to stand a few
feet from the killer.

This was hill country, and BJ was
the only police officer within sixty miles. She didn’t have much time to
control the situation before the evidence of the crime was carried away on the
wind. With no hope of backup close by, BJ stood her ground and aimed her weapon
with steady hands on the killer.

Niklosi looked at the gun in his
hand and rolled his eyes as he holstered the weapon, unwilling to harm the
small human female who was just trying to do her job. He would never harm an
innocent if he didn’t have to, and he assumed that Decano or Traze would catch
up shortly and render her unconscious while she had her attention on him.

“I have no beef with you, and this
will be short, so wait a minute,” Niklosi growled in irritation as he moved to
stomp on the pelvic area of the desiccated body.

No body, no crime, no evidence
, Nik
thought, figuring he could save them some time when his team caught up.

BJ panicked as she watched her
evidence being destroyed before her eyes. Thinking fast, she holstered her gun
and grabbed her Taser as the man knelt down to the body.

“Back the hell away!” BJ ordered as
she pointed the Taser at him.

Niklosi laughed, bending his head
to concentrate on destroying the rest of the Relian body. He looked up when he
heard the pretty female come closer and was left speechless as two barbs
entered his forehead and 50,000 volts rocketed through his skull.

Niklosi was thrown to his back by
the electrical current scrambling his brain and knocking out his beast. More
angry than injured, he yanked the offending barbs out of his head and sat up,
glaring daggers at the cheeky cop who’d shot him in the face.

BJ felt terrible that she’d gotten
him in the forehead; she’d been aiming for his shoulder when he’d moved and
looked up, but it hadn’t affected him much either way. She honestly wasn’t too
surprised that the large killer was able to shake off the worst of the effects
of the Taser so quickly, but it still scared the hell out of her.

The damn thing wasn’t made to take
out giants and this guy was huge. BJ grabbed her mace in a last ditch attempt
to subdue him before shooting him, and as he sat up and glared at her, she
maced him.

Nik immediately covered his eyes
and began growling from the burning pain.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”
Niklosi yelled out as his eyes burned and streamed water.

BJ hurried around the man, grabbed
his gun from his holster, and threw it a few feet away. She slipped a zip tie
around his wrist and yanked his hand away from his face. By the time he
realized what she was doing, he was already in the heavy plastic zip ties and
rolled onto his stomach.

“What the hell are you doing?”
Niklosi growled, yanking on the cuffs.

Although he could break free,
Niklosi had no desire to harm or frighten her and still fully expected Decano
or Traze to show up any second and help. Besides, he wasn’t thrilled at the
thought of her shooting him with the gun.

BJ ignored him and began patting
him down for more weapons and whatever he’d used to destroy the body. It took
several minutes before she was staring in awe at the pile of knives, throwing
daggers, guns, and a sword.

A sword
, she
thought in amazement.

There was also an unusual milky
white stone that she put on top of a blade to make sure she didn’t lose it.

“Honey, you’re going to be real
damn embarrassed when you have to let me go because you have nothing to hold me
on,” Niklosi warned her, hoping to convince the beautiful cop to let him go. 

“Please stand up,” BJ said as she tugged
upwards on his bound hands.

Normally BJ wouldn’t be quite so
polite, but there was something about the large man that drew her to him and
she didn’t feel the least bit of danger around him like she would around a
guilty suspect. She trusted her instincts and hoped she wouldn’t need to call
an army to get the guy to the car.

Niklosi blinked to try and clear
the burning chemical from his eyes and stumbled as he got to his knees and
tried to stand. He felt the tug on his hands to steady him, and before he knew
it he was being led to a car and placed in the back seat before she slammed the
door shut. He watched through blurry vision as she leaned into the front of the
car.

“Buford, I need some serious back
up here at Jepson’s place. As soon as you can get here,” BJ said calmly into
the radio mic.

When several minutes passed with no
response, Niklosi laughed.

“Guess they don’t like you much.
Did you shoot them in the face and spray chemicals in their eyes too?” he
mouthed off.

He couldn’t help but wonder where
the hell Decano and Traze were, and why they hadn’t stepped in yet to get him
out of this. As appealing as the female was, he was done there, and didn’t want
the woman shooting him when he tried to escape.

“Markson, I’m almost there,” came
the reply on the radio.

Niklosi burst out laughing.

“Your back up is a dinosaur?” he
asked, mocking the gravelly, weathered voice that had responded.

BJ didn’t even bother to respond to
the bait.

“I’m placing you under arrest and
I’m going to read your Miranda Rights,” BJ said before launching into the words
she knew by rote. “Do you understand your rights?”

Niklosi just chuckled at the
absurdity of the situation and nodded his head.

“Yeah, I understood you perfectly,”
he said.

BJ puzzled for a moment over his casual
acceptance of the situation before she remembered her disappearing evidence.
She leaned into the front seat and flipped on the headlights to illuminate the
body, popped the trunk, pulled out two large black cases, and headed over to
where the majority of the desiccated body still remained.

The wind was blowing more of it
away by the second, and she knew she didn’t have much time before the rain
heading their way that morning would destroy the rest of the scene.

She put on her gloves and began
taking pictures of every angle of the crime scene before collecting as much
evidence as she could before the wind managed to take the rest of it away.

At the bottom of the pile of dust
the body had turned into, BJ smiled as she picked up the handful of slugs the
killer had pumped into the man. She looked up as headlights crested the hill an
hour later, and she waved at Buford as he put his truck in park.

“What you got, girl?” Buford asked
as he sauntered over to the car and looked inside. “Damn, he’s a big ‘un! Who
the hell is he? Where’d you find him?”

“You’re not going to believe me,
Buford,” BJ said with a shake of her head as she finished collecting as much
evidence as she could. She sighed in frustration as the wind carried the
remainder of the dust away.

“Is he Jepson’s haint?” Buford
asked as he walked towards her.

What the hell is a haint?
Niklosi
wondered as he watched Buford and the female interact.

“I honestly have no idea,” BJ
admitted. “He sure ain’t from around here, or someone would’ve mentioned him by
now.”

“What in tarnation is all this
doing out here?” Buford asked as he knelt down beside the pile of weapons BJ
had taken from Niklosi.

“That’s what he was carrying,” BJ
said as she popped open an evidence bag and handed it to Buford.

“Damn, girl, what did you get in
the middle of out here?” Buford asked as he held the bag open for her.

BJ shook her head as she glanced
back at the car where the killer sat calmly in the back.

“I wish I knew, Buford. I need you
to follow me into town and call Irwin, Mojo, and Dennis for me. Have them meet
me at the station,” BJ said.

Buford whistled low and shook his
head.

“I’m damn curious about what’s
going on here,” he admitted.

BJ looked around the woods and
couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right. She was missing
something. There was also that strange tingling she usually got when she knew
she was being watched.

“I’ll explain everything when we
get to the station,” BJ assured him as she took more pictures of the scene.

“Ain’t you got enough pictures
already?” Buford asked, sounding a little exasperated.

“He just calmly killed a man in
cold blood, I’m not letting him get off on a technicality. I’ll have a family
to answer to when we figure out who this guy was,” BJ told him as she snapped a
few more pictures.

“Where’s the body?” Buford asked in
confusion as he looked around the area.

BJ nodded to the evidence
collection bags stacked near her forensics kit.

“In there.”

Buford looked at the bags and
noticed the gray dust taking up several clear bags.

“You telling me he cremated the
damn body? Out here?” Buford asked incredulously as he pulled off his hat and
scratched at his balding head.

“That’s exactly what he did,
Buford. I watched it with my own eyes, or I’d never believe it myself,” BJ
admitted.

Buford scratched his head again
before putting his hat back on.

“Well, girl, you seen what you
seen. Let’s get him into town. This place is giving me the willies right now.
My Mary dropped a knife this morning and the darn thing stuck right into the
floor, but I had no idea we’d be seeing this kind of unexpected visitor,”
Buford said.

BJ shook her head and grinned at
Buford’s mention of one of the more popular superstitions. If you dropped a
knife, and the point embedded in the floor or ground where you dropped it, then
an unexpected visitor would arrive. Similarly, if you dropped a fork, a woman
would come to your door. A spoon was an indication a gentleman would arrive. 

BJ knew that it was ancient
superstitions and folklore that the people had brought to the area hundreds of
years ago, but it still made her smile that it was still believed and practiced
in those parts.