Some Simple Business

         Gabriel hit the wall hard. His massive frame left cracks in the plaster. As he fell to the floor, the colossal body guard lumbered towards him. The man looked like a bald gorilla with milky white eyes.

         From behind the behemoth, Reginald Carstairs the Third laughed. "His mouth is writing checks his body can't cash it seems. Gabriel, if you're going to talk the talk, you better walk the walk. Finish him quickly so I can finish my business." Carstairs didn't walk so much as swagger. He looked rather out of place in the old dingy warehouse. His sharp three piece suit in pale blue didn't quite fit.

         Then again, the three shivering teens on the floor didn't fit here either. Gabriel had discovered just this night that Carstairs was planning to sell them to some other worldly interest.

         That interest was waiting, partially hidden by the shadows in one corner. One of them spoke in a voice that reminded Gabriel of nothing so much as a cold wind blowing off a septic tank. "Interesting. You have provided us a show as well as a meal. We shall enjoy watching the death of the Watchman, Carstairs."

         Gabriel dragged himself to his feet. "You'll sell those girls over my dead body!"

         Reginald turned and looked Gabriel in the eye. In a cold voice he said, "That's the idea, dear Gabriel. When push comes to shove you just don't have the killer instinct. I do, so I win. Simple as that. You die, I get my money and am living high off the hog for the rest of my days."

         Gabriel pulled a pouch from his back pocket as he spoke again. "When Hell freezes over you rat! And it hasn't yet, trust me, I've checked."

         With that, Gabriel thrust the pouch into the mouth of the bodyguard. It began to choke, and Gabriel took advantage of it's distraction to take it's legs out from under it.

         Wasting no time, Gabriel drove one knee into the hulking brute's stomach, and planted himself on the man's chest. Then he began driving several metal pins into the prone man's lips. His struggles stopped without pause.

         Gabriel rose from the still man and his stare almost bored through Carstairs. "When push comes to shoveZombies aren't really effective against someone who knows what he's doing. Now, let the girls go.

         Carstairs, eyes widening, looked from the corpse, to Gabriel, and back again. "I guess shit happens even to the best of us. I'm sure my associates can deal with you easily enough."

         The triplets that had been hiding in the shadows looked human enough, save for the inky black pools where their eyes should have been. One of them stepped forward, letting it's trench coat fall. It was a wall of muscle beneath, and that wall moved fast.

         Without pause, Gabriel said, "I'll bet dollars to doughnuts you aren't bullet proof." He bent reached under his own jacket, and brought out twin pistols and fired ten rounds from each into the approaching enemy. It fell without a word.

         The other two creatures stepped back into the shadows and vanished without a trace.

         Carstairs grabbed one of the three girls he was using as commodities and brought a wickedly serrated knife to her throat. "Let me go, Gabriel, or she dies."

         Gabriel dropped the guns. There was no way he could take down Carstairs without killing the girl. "Okay, Carstairs, you live to fight another day. But understand that I will hunt you down to..."

         "You are so predictable, Gabriel. You do bore me so. As I said, you just don't have the killer..."

         Carstairs let the knife waver from the girl's throat for a fraction of a second, and that was all that was needed. She drove her bare foot directly between his legs.

         Carstairs fell with a shriek, and gasped for breath. Gabriel was about to haul him to his feet when his former captives took the lead.

         She screamed at him. "After you tried to sell me to those things, you thought I'd just stand there and let you use me as a hostage? When pigs fly!"

         She and the other two former victims pounced on the helpless Carstairs. Gabriel left to call the police. He figured Carstairs might even be glad to see them.