Six - part 1
by Koby McSlick

My name is King. Ignis King. Ignis is the Greek word for fire. My name really means fire king. Unfortunately I am a long way from Greece. I am in the city slums of a crime-infested community. I am a homicide detective. I’m not what you would call a good cop. I’ve been suspended on four separate occasions for violence. I have earned a reputation for myself, on and off the street. I’ve been in this game for too long. Here is my story.

It was raining again, just my luck. I took another drag and flicked away my cigarette. I watched the smoke rise into the air as it battled with the oncoming rain and laughed to myself. The street was completely empty save for a few umbrellas frantically walking down the streets, eager to get out of the rain no doubt.

I was always different to my family. My brother is in jail and I had two cousins. One was called Sly, real name Samuel, but he used to think Sly was better. He was innocent enough at heart, he just couldn’t keep clean. It wasn’t a surprise really, since his brother was Johnny 23 (my other cousin). Johnny 23 was easily the third biggest crime lord in our faire city. There have been rumours, rumours that he was connected, or was one of the Six.

I answered the pay phone about two meters to my left. It was on a lonely street corner right next to where I had been standing. I had been expecting the call. I picked up the receiver and hugged it to my ear with my shoulder, and with my two spare hands lit a match.

"Yeah?" I said while lighting a cigarette with the match.

"Ignis, I have to see you."

"Where?" It was Sly, I could tell something was up, his voice was shakier than the singers on Broadway after a late night.

"The diner across the street from you. Please, I need your help."

Then he hung up the phone. He must have been near by if he wanted to meet so soon, so close to me. I crossed the street and settled myself in one of the cozy booths offered in the diner. It was the over cliched type of place, down to every last paper hat and fluorescent-lighted sign.

I was there a good ten minutes before Sly had thought it safe to reveal himself. He came through the door drenched and shivering. His face was pale and his eyes red, and I could still see the stain of tears wiped away in shame.

"Long time no see Sly" I offered as he chose the seat opposite me.

"He’s dead King, they killed him! They killed him!" He exploded in to a raging ball of fury, sadness and confusion. I tried to settle him.

"Slow down Samuel, who killed who?" But I already knew what he had to say, the report had come in this morning. I had been waiting all day in fear for Sly’s reaction and now it was upon me. Johnny had meant everything to Sly, he was his older brother and his friend, he had looked up to him all his life and had always stuck by him. But now Johnny 23 was dead. I did all I could for Sly that night and promised him I would look into it.

I had gone to the crime scene right after Sly had spoken to me. It was a popular night-club which Johnny 23 owned, used to own. He had been killed in his office. The place was saturated with police tape and camera flashes. Big News, people can sleep less lightly now. It is never a bad thing when the world becomes one criminal less, unless he is family. It was funny, justice is a twisted thing really.

The floor was soaked in blood, both the victim’s and the killer’s: the killer had probably punished himself after murdering Johnny. I saw the body, they were just about to bag it, I saw too much. They were just about to take it to forensics and conduct the autopsy. It’s not easy seeing your cousin ripped apart by a butcher’s cleaver. It wasn’t hard to see who had killed him, his name had been etched into Johnny’s bare chest. BUTCHER. I realised then that I was in the over-cliched game of dog, cat and mouse, and I was at the top of the food chain. I had to look away, I felt it was high tide in the middle of a grey stormy ocean, with nothing to protect me but a leaky fisherman’s dingy. I went to the corner and opened a cracked window to catch my breath. I was hyperventilating.

"What’s wrong with me?" I thought, "Am I cracking up?"

This was nothing like me; I had seen Butcher’s work before. No, it had to be Johnny that made the difference, it’s hard when it’s one of your own, not some nameless stranger. No this was family, this was memories, this was Christmas dinner as kids.

The killer was Butcher, a serial killing psychopath. The thing was that the case wasn’t over. Every kid knows Butcher may be crazy, but there is sense in his madness. He is a hit man; he kills for a reason, not the usual type with suits and leather gloves but a more violent one, with aprons and sharp knives. Johnny 23 wasn’t killed by accident. No. This ran deeper. It had to.

To be continued...