How I expanded my horizons.

[Grace]

Frustrated Professional

Legal Disclaimer: I am a pest control expert. Nothing more. The following story is pure amateur fiction written in theme with the site to which it was originally posted (http://www.lazlosociety.org). Everybody knows that the Mob, and therefore their hit men, don’t exist. Just like ghosts and ghouls. This story is written purely for entertainment value. Any similarities to persons living and most especially dead, are pure coincidence. Really.

I don’t normally relate the conduct of my jobs. For one, most of my customers value discretion. For another, my activities could get me into serious trouble if I were ever caught. I break this rule here for several reasons.

First, it’ll be difficult to trace me through this site. Sure, not impossible but you gotta advertise somehow and it’s a surprisingly small risk.

Secondly, there is already a certain skepticism associated with this site. People on the outside just don’t take you seriously. Even legitimate parapsychologists I talk to look guilty when they admit to having heard of this place. Just look around folks. A lotta tales are going to challenge credibility a lot more than mine.

And finally, because I was offered a bonus to do so. Apparently the message I sent with the completion of my last job wasn’t enough. The client wanted to make sure it got the widest dispersal possible. When I asked, “Why here?” He told me, “Because not everyone who visits the Lazlo Society is an active poster or a member. Many are quietly watching. Many are minions. I want them to watch this.”

Whatever, as long as I get paid.

So at first the job seemed really sweet. I get paid 60K to off a senator’s girlfriend. Since it wasn’t his wife hiring me, I figured it was to send the old geezer a message. As you know, I was right. Sorta.

Now, the client didn’t specify discretion in the contract, but it’s always a good policy for legal reasons. So I figure I should orchestrate a little mountainside automobile accident. A small charge to trigger the landslide plus a nifty little device to cause the brakes to fail on demand. Both parts of this job I sub-contract out. I’ve already been paid, so I can afford it.

The time comes and I’m watching from a safe distance, remote controls in hand. As expected, the sporty little number that her sugar daddy bought her comes into view. A quick look through my glasses tells me that she’s alone in the car and there ain’t anyone else on the road this late at night. So first I set off the landslide and then I take away her brakes.

She veers wildly and winds up going over the edge. The car tumbles down the mountainside. This ain’t Hollywood or nothing so the car doesn’t explode. That’s okay, a third little device, put in at the same time as the brake stopper ignites the gasoline for me when the car hits the bottom.

The mark should be dead now but I watch a bit to make sure. Besides, I have to go collect some evidence before the authorities arrive.

So imagine my surprise when the door flies right off and she gets out of the car. She’s a bit bruised and singed from the ordeal, but that’s it. She’s pissed but not really hurt. So then she climbs back up the mountainside, but like really fast and without any gear. I take a closer look with my binoculars and I swear I saw these small wings sticking out of her back and flapping madly. It was almost comical. That was when I blinked, shook my head and took another peek. But by then she was already back up at the road and storming off.

Wish I’d brought my long arm, could have saved myself a lot of hassle. I grab what I need to and haul butt out of there.

Next attempt, I get a job at a restaurant that she and her beau frequent. When no one’s looking I make sure her drink is so dosed with poison that an ambulance will be called in a matter of minutes. Only it’s never called. She finishes her meal and walks out. Next day, she even comes back and orders the same damn drink!

Between the gadgets and specially formulated poison, this job is starting to cut into my profits. But I got a contract to complete.

Obviously, this is going to require a more direct approach. When she ain’t entertaining her gentleman friend, she likes to frequent a club called ‘The Underground’. Now I’m not vain or nothing, but I clean up nice so it’s not hard for me to get in. I bump into her and lo and behold, she digs me. So I play it and I wind up driving her back to a seedy hotel.

Once inside, she’s all hot and bothered but I tell her I need to get something from my car. Outta my trunk I grab my gear. Pulling a ski mask over my head, I figure I can make this look like a murder-robbery. I kick open the door and move into the room. She was obviously expecting me to be a bit more genteel as she’s already naked and on the bed waiting for me. Her look of surprise only lasts a moment though. I’m not even up to her and she’s already reacting.

After she’s knocked me around the room a couple of times, I realize that there’s no way I can take her. She brushed off most my blows while hitting me like a jackhammer. The one time I do noticeable damage to her, I see the cut heal right in front of my eyes. And it ain’t like I’m a slouch when it comes to throwing down.

Survival instincts kick in and I focus on escaping. I manage to wrap a bed sheet around her head and then I’m out the door again.

That was when I got scared.

What I was seeing was crazy but I ain’t one to doubt my own senses. So I start poking around some more, trying to figure out what I’m up against. That was when I found this site. I also found me some other experts who were willing to tell me what they knew. But what was real interesting was that I found out that this girl didn’t exist. No records, nothing. No family contacts and no one to miss her except the guy who’s cheating on his wife with her. It’s like she just popped out of nowhere.

Well, my research don’t turn nothing up that’s useful. So I just decide to take it to the next level. I find a nice high building about a kilometer away from her apartment is. I wait until her gentleman caller comes by. She starts doing this sexy dance for him right in the living room. The curtains are wide open. Maybe they get off on thinking someones watching. Unfortunately for them, someone was.

I start pumping .338 Lapua Magnum rounds into her. The damn mark takes all five armor piercing shots but it goes down. And it don’t get back up again. No, it turns into this could of bugs that fly out what’s left of the window into the night.

Heard that Senator has gone and got his soul saved by Jesus.

But somehow, I don’t think that was the message being sent.

And something tells me, he wasn’t the recipient in any case.

[Clarity]

_____Could the lady have escaped as the bugs, Mr. Nemesis?

[Grace]

You know Miss Grace, my first impulse was to laugh your suggestion off.

But after seeing what I saw and reading what I've read, I ain't so sure no more.

My client seems satisfied that the job is complete... so I don't think I'm going to pursue it any farther for now.

[KonThaak]

Usually, that form of corporal dissemination means the sucka's dead, yo...to put it as Willie Long would put it, if he were here.

That's usually the Dybbuk's style of death...but they leave more of a trail than that, usually. The corpse they inhabit usually has enough of a history to track to make them seem plausible...but I suppose a smart one could fake a name and go to a place they wouldn't be recognized. Another thought, if it was a Dybbuk, is that a sorceror of one kind or another--probably a necromancer--is trying his/her hand at politics. That's especially my gut instinct, since the message was meant for someone besides Mr. Senator.

That's just off the top of my head, without knowing any more than I do about the case...

[Grace]

Corporal dissemination?

Dybbuk?

Necromancer?

I'm lost.

All I know is that it was my toughest kill ever, and I'm not even sure I killed it now, since all I really saw was it turn into a cloud of bugs and fly away.

I know you're trying to help, but you're not speaking my language, KonThaak.

[Michael T]

I think that this may have been a seductrous demon... I don't know for sure with out haveing seen them or without more information that I do not belive Nemesis had time to collect. Trying to survive usally precludes trying to be scholarly in a fight for your life.

Might have been interesting to have found out exactly what this was... oh well live and learn later.

Michael T.

[Logan]

Let me try, Nemesis.

Your target turned out to be a dybbuk, a type of monster that is often brought to our world by unscrupulous persons with magical aptitude. (I don't care if you believe it or not, it's the best explanation I have, you don't like it find your own explaination.)

The dybbuk was inhabiting the body of a young lady, in this case that of a senator's girlfriend. (Dybbuk can inhabit a recently slain corpse, in this case the girl's, that's how they try to avoid notice when they bother to try)

Since a Dybbuk is much more resiliant than we are, and the bastards heal faster too, I am not surprised that it survived the car accident (nice work by the way, myself I prefer to have a gasoline based device right under the driver's seat)

Since the target was no longer a living human, I am also not surprised that the poison did not work, the chemistry would not have matched up correctly.

[Clarity]

_____Was she too heavy to fly, do you think? I wonder if it hurts to wear clothes over wings.

[Michael T]

There is only one problem I can find with the dybbuk theroy, there was no mention of a corpse. A dybbuk would discorporate into a swam of bugs but the body they were inhabiting would remain, as it is a real human body not a paranormal extention of the dybbuk. This is why I belive it may have been a suductress demon, they actually shape shift to a form to seduce a target for thier needs. I could be wrong of course as most of these things do not follow normal rules and natural courses. By all accounts I have encountered on dybbuks follow the almost same patterns.

I rember Celeste posted a thread about a succubus; I would ask her but I am not convinced she is around any more, even with the recent postings. If you remeber any thing else of interest please share Nemesis.

Michael T.

[Grace]

Okay, so I Google Dybuk.

Wiki tells me that its some Hebrew spirit that was too evil to go to hell so it wanders the world, possessing people.

So that jives with some of what you guys are telling me about this thing I iced. It don't explain the cloud of bugs thing to me but I'll table that for now.

But if this thing possesses people, shouldn't there been a body or something left over? And also, I looked real hard to find proof this person existed, you know records and such. Now I'm human and I make mistakes but I didn't find anything. She didn't have a drivers license, no social security, no criminal record, no school record, no missing persons report. Maybe she crossed the border from up North, but it seems unlikely.

And the wings? There's no mention from any of you or in wiki of this thing supposedly having wings... only I just saw them the one time and I'm not too sure about that.

Now one of you mentioned seductrous demon, Micheal T, I think. And he goes on to mentioin a succubus. So I google Succubus. Wiki mentions bat like wings, which fits, I guess. They don't tell you how big they're supposed to be. I guess because they assume they aren't real. But most pictures I've seen of demons, they always have these massive wings, right? I mean these were small! And they flapped really, really fast. If I wasn't so pissed that I hadn't killed her, I would have been laughing.

So yeah, Miss Grace, by any sense I know, she should have been way too heavy to fly with them wings.

Wiki also says that Succubi can have cloven feet and horns. I don't remember seeing those.

I do know she gouged me a couple of times really good with her nails when we threw down. I still have the scars. I remember thinking that they should have broken off or something.

Does that help you folks any?

[Doctor Boggs]

Either way you got a shape shifting demon, one rides around in dead bodies and the other just changes into any form it likes. If it did survive you could be in a heap of trouble, those creatures are smart, vindictive and literally nasty as hell.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

Nemesis . . . I can’t help but wonder if you were being set up?

[Grace]

Doctor Boggs,

I didn't see a body left, afterwards. Or rather I did but it just sort of 'became' the cloud of insects.

Damn, if it's still alive, I'm going to have to kill it again. Whenever it pops up again. IF.

Miss Solstice,

I don't think I was set up in the way you mean... that is I think the client was on the level so far as who he wanted me to kill and likely knew what it was, even if he didn't tell me.

If I was set up, it was how he lead me to these boards. For some reason, he wanted me posting here, I think. And not just that one message. He could have created an account to deliver it himself, I think. I don't know. I just get the feeling there's a reason I came here... some purpose. But it ain't mine.

We'll see what happens.

I don't want to say too much, I know he reads these forums. He could be anyone, really. Even you.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

Miss Solstice,

I don't think I was set up in the way you mean... that is I think the client was on the level so far as who he wanted me to kill and likely knew what it was, even if he didn't tell me.

If I was set up, it was how he lead me to these boards. For some reason, he wanted me posting here, I think. And not just that one message. He could have created an account to deliver it himself, I think. I don't know. I just get the feeling there's a reason I came here... some purpose. But it ain't mine.

That’s exactly what I mean.

[Grace]

Okay Miss Solstice,

You have me intrigued. What makes you think that is the case? Do you think I was set up here to get a bunch of you goody-two shoe types (no offense) after me? Do you think he wants to start a gun war here, hoping some of you might not be so very nice and want to eliminate some of the others? Am I here to mix things up and rile you all up? Am I here to test the waters, so to speak? Or are you one of them optimistic types who thinks that my client has nothing but good intentions, came up with a grand scheme not only to eliminate a nasty that had gotten itself close to a position of power and in doing so, put me close to people who might just 'make me see the light'?

Cause while I think you might be right about me being here being a set up, I can't for the life of me figure out what the angle is.

In any case, I got another job. Someone saw my ad here and contacted me with my [email protected] account.

What is it, you see?

[Eilonwy Solstice]

Well, as long as you move, you’re hard to track . . . but as long as you keep coming back to a place, you can be track, Nemesis. I’m no computer expert, but I’m guessing “IP” addresses can be tracked. If you go to here from a café, she still knows where you’ve been. If you go to a library and look at your profile, she can still track you. As long as you keep returning, she can find you . . . track you . . . and create her own profile for you based on your whereabouts, timing of posts, posting habits, writing style, and other leads to learn.

Now, I imagine that whoever wants you tracked will have a time doing so. I imagine that address is a false one. But I imagine, if she has used you, she has paid you. And if she has paid you, then she has money. And if she has money, he has influence. And influence leads to many eyes, many fingers. You may leave many false trails, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she has the workforce to follow through with all of them. The Lazlo will become the hub, and the false trails the spokes . . . but eventually sir, you will be able to be found.

“She” being a purely neuter term . . . though I’ve wondered . . .

[Grace]

There is merit to what you say, Miss Solstice.

I'm sure I'll meet my own Nemesis someday.

But the client made contact with me through regular channels. As hard as I make it for people to find me, he might have been able to do it then. So why the boards? Why here? Unless he wants someone to do his wetwork for him?

And it's true, the client has resources and considering the nature of the contract, has a political agenda of some sort. I never did meet him in person so I never had a chance to feel him out.

I guess time will tell.

And I've heard that 'she' is the PC gender neutral way of addressing people. But what were you wondering?

[Celeste Darken]

I rember Celeste posted a thread about a succubus; I would ask her but I am not convinced she is around any more, even with the recent postings. If you remeber any thing else of interest please share Nemesis.

Michael T.

If I am the one who made the post of this . . . “succubus” . . . then I am she. So, tell me, “Michael” . . . why should I leave?

[Grace]

Miss Darken,

I'm not Micheal, but I have been informed that certain types aren't welcome here.

But hey, who am I to judge?

[Michael T]

You are not the the succubus Celeste, you post a war story about a fight you Bert and Dante encountered one in. I am not telling you to go away either, I would like to meet with you to talk. I am curious about your seeming return from viewing a sun rise.

Michael T.

[Ron Caliburn]

It's not Darken. I destroyed Darken.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

I wouldn’t be so sure, Nemesis. Perhaps your client did meet you? Or perhaps he or she was watching you during the exchange?

[Logan]

Judgeing from case logs, I would say that you, Nemesis, are here to get you involved in a conflict with some of the less morally flexible persons on the board.

I have no doubt that the client who sent you here wants to see several of the persons of interest here removed, and would most likely be just as pleased if you perished instead.

Let me know when you are free, Nemesis, I am a bit short on manpower at the moment, and on a rough case.

[Grace]

What an interesting notion, Logan.

As for your thoughts, Miss Solstice, I find them considerably more disturbing.

[Eilonwy Solstice]

What an interesting notion, Logan.

As for your thoughts, Miss Solstice, I find them considerably more disturbing.

Well, I won’t apologize if I disturbed you, Nemesis. That was the way I felt when reading through matters. I guess you could say I . . . think . . . like they might, at times. Of course, I could be wrong . . .