Free Operation by Tony Ruggiero

pain or fear; the lips stretched as if he were screaming or badly scared.
    There were patches of something dark smeared on the side of the face, which didn’t look natural to him for some reason. Looking further, he saw that the man’s pockets bulged with something. He reached into one of them and removed little packets, which contained a white powder. The obvious indication was drugs.
    Memories poured into the man’s mind. The military—the drugs—and the slit throats; the combination was always deadly; the universal punishment by and for the drug cartels. He remembered his own actions while in Jamaica and areas of South America. He had killed them—the drug lords—in his own way, then slit their throats to make it appear as if it had been done by another cartel, and not by himself and his team—the Team of Darkness. Here it was again, the memories washing up onto the beach of his consciousness like a forgotten piece of driftwood, which he wished would remain forgotten. He didn’t want to remember any of it.
    Dimitri Bicannoff stood and gazed toward the horizon once again. The blackness had turned to a dark gray now as the morning began its slow approach. He knew he should go before it became dangerous for him, but something drew him back to the body. There was something strange about the body, but he couldn’t place what it was.
    As he tried to think in the increasing brightness of the morning and the threat it brought, he was about to leave and return to his home only a few blocks away, until a strange but familiar smell wafted up from the dead man. The association was immediate and he discovered what it was he should have realized earlier.
    He knelt down next to the body again and turned the man’s head to one side to show only the profile. The dark stains on the side of man’s face were beginning to smolder—the flesh was beginning to cook.
    Anger surged through him like a bolt of electricity. His hands opened and closed in frustration, as if wanting to grasp something and tear it apart. He screamed his frustration into the pre-dawn air until he felt his anger abate enough to be coherent.
    There was no time for this now, he thought, as his primal instincts for survival and the first glimmer of dawn reminded him he had to leave now. He hurriedly ran to his car, got in, started it up and drove out of the parking lot. He arrived at the house within a few minutes and quickly exited the vehicle. He ran toward the door of the home, feeling the first rays of the morning light come over the horizon and strike his back. He felt the heat inside of him grow quickly, his vampire blood beginning to boil.
    He stopped in the shade of the house, but didn’t go all the way in. Instead, he removed a small knife and a handkerchief from his pocket. He opened the knife blade and held the knife in his right hand, then ran the sharp edge across the palm of his left hand. Dark blood oozed from the slit that was quickly trying to close itself back up. He dabbed at the blood with his handkerchief and watched it turn black from the blood. He then returned the knife to his pocket.
    Stepping back toward the door that led to the outside, careful to remain out of the direct light that now filtered in, he threw the handkerchief into the rays of sun. He watched as it briefly smoldered and then burst into flame.
    “Is something wrong?” a voice called to him.
    Dimitri didn’t answer but continued to stare at the burning handkerchief.
    “Dimitri?” the voice repeated.
    Slowly, Dimitri turned in the direction of the voice. In the hallway, there stood two men. They were large like him, and their skin was dark, the look of European ancestry in their faces, skin and hair. He looked at Andre and Iliga, his friends, fellow vampires and survivors of the Team of Darkness, as they stood in the shadowed light of the hallway.
    “It is happening again,” Dimitri said, in a voice that was cold and unemotional. He turned and looked back at what