A Tangle With Hatred

By Reese Currie

Creighton Zee is a man who has been disenfranchised by the injustice in his world. Tired of his life as an office worker, he becomes a sort of private investigator and revenge broker.

In this second instalment in the series of "Tangle" books, Creigh is hired by a lawyer to bodyguard a client after a self defense shooting. The deceased bad guys had friends: a mysterious gang of violent thugs. Can Creigh keep the client alive, and find out who is out to kill him?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reese Currie
• Release date: Feb 28, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301759279

Reese Currie

Reese Currie has had the creative writing bug in his soul from a very young age. Now in his middle age, he is finally releasing the floodgates on his passions, including his passion for fiction writing.

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A Tangle with Hatred

By Reese Currie

Copyright 2013 by Reese Currie

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter One

My name is Creighton Zee, and my job is one of my own making. I am, more or less, a hired gun; except I only worked on the side of what I, at least, perceive as being the good and right side. Evil has more than enough guns on its side. I stood for the side of good.

Sometimes my cases involved the paranormal. On those occasions, I was almost certain to hear from Jack, a shadowy government figure I had never met. Jack and I had once made a deal. He would tolerate my actions if I would help him cover up the paranormal; for this purpose he would direct paranormal cases my way. Though Jack himself seemed not to be a member of the RCMP, for some reason all of the RCMP's cases that appeared to be paranormal in nature were directed my way. Jack's job was to keep people in the dark about the paranormal, so that there would not be widespread panic or confusion.

On my last case, I had basically broken my deal with Jack, after he sent someone to kill me, and to kill the woman who was the love of my life, Natalia Norayan, because she had been a werewolf. She had been cured of her lycanthropy by her conversion to Christianity. It was believed in medieval times that conversion would cure lycanthropy, and of all the medieval cures I had tried on that case, it was the only one that worked.

When the attempt had been made on her life, I had been mortally wounded and she had been, I thought, shot and killed. It was then that we learned that the ability to survive being shot with normal, non-silver bullets, was an aspect of lycanthropy that had remained after her conversion to Christianity. She was unconscious for a while after the shot, but then awoke to find me mortally wounded. She had saved my life by giving me the powers of lycanthropy. We had learned that lycanthropy could be sexually transmitted, so she saved my life by making love to me as I lay dying. I didn't develop the out-of-control violent symptoms of lycanthropy because I was a Christian already, but I did get the ability to survive bullet wounds, and luckily for me, it seemed to work retroactively because by morning, my bullet wounds were cured.

I had fallen in love with Natalia even before that happened, but if she hadn't given me her own healing powers after I had been shot, I would not be around to live happily with her today. I had saved her life, and she had saved mine.

To prevent any further attempts on Jack's part to kill Natalia, I had given her a completely new identity. She was officially Wendy Jones, an unfortunately bland name that had been made up on the fly by a lawyer named Desmond Garner.

Desmond had been my first friend in this town, until eventually I found out that he was a shadow, a spy who was watching me at Jack's behest. When I found out he was an operative of Jack's, two facts had spared his life. First, he had been coerced into working for Jack through threats made on the life of his son, who was serving his country in the military in Afghanistan. Second, he had put his own life at risk by lying to Jack, saying that Natalia Norayan was indeed dead, and that the girl who was with me was Wendy Jones, a lady I had met through my new hobby, cowboy action shooting.

Natalia came from another village a few hours distant. As a werewolf, and having no real rational control of herself, she had killed her nephew. After she had been cured and the caper was over, she explained to her family what had happened. They needed a bit more time to absorb it. On the plus side, they hadn't disowned her outright or tried to prosecute her. On the minus side, they could not yet handle having her around. It was a sad situation and we were hoping for time to heal the wounds.

Time was something I had in abundance right now. Generally speaking, my cases paid well, and I didn't have to find another case right away to keep myself going. I had the luxury of being able to take time off between them. After the particularly difficult case with the werewolves, I was now enjoying some much needed time off. I had closed up my place on the east coast and moved out here, to British Columbia. Natalia and I had rented a place in this village, which was around four hours away from her hometown and family. It gave us some distance from them while they recovered.

I had continued my involvement in cowboy action shooting. I had to practice with guns anyway, to keep my skills sharp. Why not practice with friends who had no idea what my real job was? I had told all of them that I was a contract computer programmer, because I had been a programmer in my first career and it would be easy to realistically answer any questions that might come up.

Now that I had Natalia in my life, and life no longer seemed like a throwaway event, I was considering actually going back into programming, and leaving my gun slinging activities behind. Still, my hatred of injustice burned in my soul, and the ability to step into other people's situations to stop injustice gave me a purpose in life that computer programming never really had.

This day I had the range to myself, until an acquaintance had shown up, a fellow named Jacob Davies. Jacob had recently picked up a new Ruger Vaquero single action revolver and was putting it through its paces with .38 ammunition. At the same time, I was shooting with my twin Ruger Blackhawks. This particular day I was firing it with full-fledged .357 magnum rounds. The recoil was heavy, but so was the Blackhawk, and it was actually quite easy to shoot despite the very strong rounds. It certainly wasn't my most useful combat piece, but I loved the feel of it in my hand, and it had served me very well on my last caper.

Jacob said something I couldn't hear. I removed my ear protection.

Your target, he said, gesturing downrange. You've really torn it apart with those .357's.

I looked downrange. The target had a large, single ragged hole in it; the grouping of my shots was superb. Maybe it was a little too good for somebody who is supposed to be a computer programmer in real life.

I don't shoot quite this good with my other guns, I said, my double-action guns I mean. I think having to cock between shots slows me down enough that I take more time and make a better shot.

Not too many mechanical things happening while you're pulling the trigger, either, Jacob added. I only shoot these single-action pieces, I don't own any other kind.

You getting ready for the next competition? I asked.

He nodded. Aren't you? You don't plan on shooting .357's at the competition, do you?

Want to know the truth of it? I asked. I love recoil. Big recoil. It helps me feel relaxed. After these babies, shooting .38 wad cutters at targets in the competitions feels too easy.

Jacob chuckled. I sort of know what you mean about liking recoil. My main gun before this one is another Vaquero in .45 Long Colt, and that's where I go when I want a bigger boom.

You ever shoot .357 magnums? I asked.

Never have, Jacob admitted. I picked up this one to have less recoil and hopefully, a higher score.

Do you want to try them? I asked.

I didn't bring any, Jacob said.

I did, I replied, giving a handful of .357's to him. He thanked me and ejected a cylinder full of spent .38 casings one at a time, then loaded a full cylinder of my .357 magnum ammunition. I put on my ear protection again as he turned and started firing rounds downrange. At first, he was having a little trouble with the recoil, despite the relative heaviness of his gun.

Jacob's grouping wasn't that good. He took off his ear protection and I said, Shoot another cylinder of those. He nodded his appreciation, ejected the .357 casings individually, then loaded up his cylinder with more .357's. These have a fair amount more kick to them than the .45's do, he said as he reloaded.

I never shot .45 Long Colts, I admitted. I do have a 1911 semi-automatic that shoots .45 ACP. Is the recoil similar?

Pretty similar, I guess, replied Jacob. I used to borrow a friend's 1911 for a Wild Bunch Action Shooting events, and it was .45 ACP. It seemed to have a lighter recoil but I think the slide action absorbs some of the recoil compared to a revolver.

I had to ask him to explain Wild Bunch Action Shooting; it was named after the old Sam Peckinpah movie, and a single 1911 replaced the dual revolvers in those events. We put on the ear protection and he fired a few more rounds down-range. He his grouping was worse this time. That's going in the wrong direction, he said ruefully.

Let me load your gun this time, I said. He passed me the gun, and I loaded it with .357's, skipping a couple of random chambers. I handed the gun back to him. When he hit one of the empty chambers, he jerked the gun anyway.

I thought so, I said. You're flinching.

What? he said, removing his ear protection.

You're flinching, I repeated. You're flinching against either the expected recoil, or the noise. I don't know what to advise. Some people say the cure for this is to let the shot surprise you. Personally, I want to know exactly when the gun is going to fire. I kind of think the answer is follow-through, you know, pointing the gun back on target immediately after discharge. That, or just plain getting used to the heavier recoil through repetition.

We put our headgear back on. He shot another couple of rounds, hit the empty chamber, and didn't flinch.

I patted him on the shoulder, took his revolver, individually ejected the spent casings and loaded him up again, leaving one cylinder empty. I handed back the gun, we adjusted our headgear, and he shot down range again. He had much better grouping this time, and again, no sign of a flinch when he snapped on the empty cylinder.

Good, I said. You're getting better already.

I don't know, said Jacob. I bought this gun for less recoil, not more, but that ammunition is still really fun to shoot.

Take some .357's with you, I offered. In case I'm not at the range next time you're here.

You're almost always at the range, Creigh, Jacob said. It was an observation that let me know I was slipping up, spending too much time at the range, and spending too much on ammunition for a fellow who is between jobs.

Yeah, I might get a job soon, I replied. Never can tell when in my business. I have a lot of resumes out there. This last bit was a lie; I had no programming resumes out anywhere.

Are you getting ready for the competition, too? Jacob asked doubtfully.

I shook my head. I don't know. You guys are way too fast for me, I said.

Well, maybe I can show you something, Jacob said. He emptied and refilled his guns with .38's. He flipped on his ear protection and started firing downrange, his left hand flapping, re-cocking the Vaquero with amazing rapidity while he shot right handed.

I was shaking my head. That was extremely fast, I said after he was done and we had taken off our ear protection.

It's all in the technique, he said. Maybe I shouldn't show you, you'll start coming to the competitions again and kick my butt.

We laughed together, and then he coached me, having me pick up the Blackhawk, starting me with the hand motions required with an empty gun. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Five shots in a row, because in single-action shooting, only five rounds were loaded, with an empty cylinder going under the hammer to facilitate safe carry. Most cowboy guns didn't have the modern transfer bar feature Rugers did to prevent accidental discharge, so most people had to carry their guns on an empty chamber, with only five shots in the gun, hence the standard. He was getting me to do it really slow, dry firing, then firing with ammunition at the same slow speed, then dry firing, then with ammunition. We spent a couple of hours and I increased speed each time I fired. I was getting the proper motions down.

Well, that's all I have time for, Creigh, he said after checking his watch. You keep at it, you'll get your speed up with no trouble.

Thanks a lot, Jacob, I replied. What are you up to tonight?

I'm going to get my daughter Julie for the weekend, he answered.

I smiled. Well, maybe I'll get to meet her in church tomorrow, I said.

That's possible, if she can get up early enough, Jacob replied. She's working late hours at a gas station. I have to drive for three hours to get her for eleven; we won't be home until two.

I laughed. Well, if I don't see you, have yourself a good weekend.

You too, Creigh.

Chapter Two

I arrived home smelling of burnt gunpowder. I had done a lot of shooting today. Sometimes Natalia—using her Wendy persona—came out to shoot with me, albeit with much more modern-styled equipment, but today I had been alone until Jacob had shown up. We greeted each other and shared a kiss.

I found something interesting today on the Internet, she said.

What did you find?

There's this hamlet in Serbia, a place called Zarozje, that says they have a vampire.

Really? I asked. Serbia, huh?

The vampire's name is Sava Savanovic, she added. The officials there have actually put out a public health warning, because they believe that this vampire has returned.

Now that could be a business opportunity for us, I mused.

Possibly, said Natalia. Unfortunately they're already seeing a business opportunity of their own in it.

Do tell, I prompted.

Tourism.

I laughed. Well, if people start dying, that might make things serious.

Ah, but people are dying, Natalia replied. Five people have recently died, one after the other. One of them by hanging, the other causes of death weren't mentioned.

I pursed my lips in thought. It wouldn't hurt for me to see how we could notify the town council there that there are people who can help, if they want us to.

She named one of the town councillors, who, immediately after reporting the deaths, added that whatever was true about Sava Savanovic, the locals should use the legend to promote tourism.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. Doesn't sound like a fellow who wants to end the situation. Sounds more like a fellow who wants to perpetuate it to make a few bucks.

Natalia tapped a pen against her teeth a few times, deep in thought, before saying, Maybe if we killed the vampire, it would prove that the vampire really did exist, but it's safe now... that might bring some tourist trade, too.

I groaned. Maybe so, I said, but Jack wouldn't necessarily appreciate it if I proved something paranormal existed.

Why would he care? It's in Serbia, replied Natalia. His job is to prevent people finding out about the paranormal in Canada, right?

Well, yes, I replied, "but the news would certainly travel from Serbia. A bunch of people here could get bent out of shape because they find out vampires really