The Writers Guild Presents: 5/30/2014

Issue #11 - The Faces Behind the Masks

The pale skinny janitor pushed his cart into the hospital room and cocked his head, waves of greasy blonde hair flopping over his face, as the Asian patient looked up from the sudoku puzzle book she was holding.

"Can I help you?" She asked as he opened up the side of the cart.

"Just cleaning miss." He replied. "Your guards checked me out before I was allowed in." He added as he removed a mop from his cart.

"Sure, okay." Siwang stated before going back to her book.

**

James sat in the A&E department as the rest of the Anti Patron Saint of Crime task force arrived, the officers dressed in ballistic armour emblazoned with the letters SWAT, on both the front and back.

"You sure that the security guard from the armoured car shooting is Siwang?" A dark skinned officer named Lane asked.

"Because I just do." James snapped, the loudness of his voice causing the nurse at the desk to stare at him. "Do what I say and we can end this madness and put Boccanegra on the back foot."

"James this isn't you." Gillian stated. "I want to catch this woman as much as anyone, but this feels like a vendetta then an investigation. And what if you're wrong? This could be seen as racial persecution."

"This woman is in the best hospital suite and is guarded by two of Bocanegra's known associates and most skilled assassins. What does that tell you about this woman?"

"That she's a criminal but that doesn't make her the Patron Saint of Crime." Gilligan told him. "This woman was shot with an arrow if you remember. I doubt that wound was self inflicted."

"Trust me on this..." James told his team in a low cold voice, "...she's no angel."

**

Helen sat down at the tabled and pulled a tablet out of her bag before tapping the unlock button. Taking a sip from her coffee, she opened up the Skype link and connected on the secure link to the 'Church', a secret base under AlturaPark. Within seconds the face of Vance, Siwang's resident computer geek filled the screen, his lips smeared with nacho cheese and tortilla chip crumbs.

"You know that Maya will kill you if you leave smears on the keyboard." Helen told him. "So did you manage to hack into the medical records?"

"Of course." Vance snorted. "There were traces of Silicon Dioxide, Ferric Material and Manganese."

"In English." Helen sighed. "Always in English"

"It's the chemical composition of Obsidian." Vance told her.

"That means Maya's owl guy was in the hospital." Helen gasped.

"That's not all. There was something else. There were traces of cleaning fluid on the blade; your Aztec owl priest is working as a janitor or something like that." Vance announced.

"Oh crud." Helen gasped as she got to her feet and spilling her coffee over the table before running towards the exit.

**

Siwang looked up from her book as the janitor walked over carrying an air-freshener and placed it on the bedside table. Taking a deep breath she saw the janitor give her a quick smile before walking back to his cart. Ducking down he removed a gas mask from the trolley and turned to face her.

"Who?" Siwang gasped.

"I've been waiting for this ever since you tried to shoot me in those tunnels." The janitor hissed as thick white gas leaked out of the air freshener. "The dead cry for vengeance against you."

"You!!" Siwang gasped. "Not you please. Somebody, anybody help!!" She screamed as she pulled herself free from the data recording machines and rolled onto the floor. "Don't let him get me!" She screeched as the janitor closed in on her holding a mop, its tip broken to reveal an obsidian spear point.

"Don't bother crying to your guards, as we speak they are slaves to their libido." The janitor told Siwang as he raised his makeshift spear ready to skewer her. "As for the cameras, well right now nobody is watching over you." He growled as he plunged the spear down, only for Siwang to roll away and get to her feet.

Running for the door she barrelled past the trolley and out into the hallway only to see the pristine white walls replaced by an obsidian black tunnel, shambling corpses walking past. Looking back she saw the janitor morph into a familiar dreadful visage, one that made her shudder as the feathered inhuman Owl Priest advanced on her.

"This isn't real, this isn't real." She stuttered to herself

.

"If it wasn't real could I do this?" The priest asked as he reached out and slashed her with obsidian black talons. Looking at her arm Siwang screamed before bolting, blood dripping from the gash in her arm. "Run," the Priest purred, "I will find you and inflict the suffering of your victims onto you, vengeance will be ours."

**

Juliet pulled her suit trousers back on as she sat on the edge of the autopsy table. Sitting at the other end was her current boyfriend and former work partner Romeo, his head in his hands.

"That bad, are you still taking those little blue pills?" Juliet asked as she slipped off the table and walked over to the door, the manual override mechanism frozen in the 'secure' position.

"That's never the problem Julietta and you know it." Romeo answered as he buttoned his white shirt.

"Ooh real names, we must be in trouble Montague." Juliet hissed bitterly as she began to lift the security leaver to the 'open' position.

"We should not have left Siwang unguarded." Montague lamented as Juliet set the leaver and unfroze the automatic lock. "We were ordered to guard the room until relieved."

"I knew it!!" Juliet screamed as she slammed the lock back down. "It would be about her! It's always bloody well about her!!" She added before adding a few curse words in Italian. "You love her don't you!?"

"I don't!"

"Liar" Juliet hissed. "You love her or you will!?" She cried before kicking the door. "You love her and she loves you."

"That's not true." Montague protested. "I have forsaken all other beds for yours; you know that yet you still do these stupidly insecure things. Siwang isn't a threat to our love life." He added as he walked over and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Our love is so strong that it's written in the stars and nothing will ever change that."

"Yeah nothing." Juliet mumbled before bowing her head in lamentation. "Nothing at all."

**

Helen desperately hammered the 'up' button of the lift before cursing out loud and running to the stairs. Climbing three floors she skidded round the corner and threw open the door to see half a dozen police officers standing in the room.

"What, where is she?" Helen yammered as James cocked the MP5 he was carrying.

"A good question." Gillian stated as the officers filled out before speaking into her radio. "Despatch we have a target on the run. Issue a BOLO on an Asian woman in her mid twenties dressed in a hospital gown."

"Don't worry miss." James stated. "We'll find her, it's time for her to stop running and face justice," he added as he pushed past her' "for everything she is guilty of."