Read Murder Genes for Free Online

closing his eyes, resting.   A few minutes passed and it seemed to help but he struggled to stay awake.   He was sinking...sleeping.
    He heard a sound like jingling bells.   Santa?   He came to his feet, swaying.   A flashlight's beam touched the floor at the doorway, following a path he hadn't realized he'd left.   Bloody footprints.   Jay limped around a corner wall, feeling his way along.   He had to find a way outside where he would be harder to track.
    The jingling got closer.   Jay quickened his steps, working his way around edges blindly.   His heart beat rapid, faintly, and though he hurried his pace he realized it would do no good.   He'd never escape, not injured and blind as he was.   Better to face whoever followed--reindeer or man--boldly, than to be caught fleeing.   Jay stopped.
    The flashlight's beam came around and through the doorway, Jay saw that he was cornered.   It would have changed nothing if he had continued to run.   Black dots speckled in his vision and he leaned into the wall.
    The beam traced his bloody tracks leisurely, stopped at Jay's feet, rose to his face, down his uniform, halted back on his leg.
    "Not looking too good there, Enforcer," a young voice said.   The flashlight came back up to Jay's eyes.
    Jay winced, blocking it with an arm.   "Put that away."
    It flicked off and steps approached, more than one pair.   Jay couldn't tell how many.   He peered into the darkness.   "Who are you?"
    "You're not supposed to be up this late, it's past your curfew."   The voice was taunting.   The flashlight clicked on and the light turned on its bearer.   The first thing Jay saw was a necklace of teeth strewn together, each flaked in dried blood.   The light continued up to a face.   Jay half expected to see a scarred or mutilated visage.   Instead, he saw a freckled, teenage boy with a confident grin.   The light flicked off.
    "My mom says I'm old enough to stay up this late," Jay said.   "What do you want?"
    "What do I want?   You came to me, to my land."
    Sounded like a gang.   And Jay was trespassing into their territory.   Jay groaned and his body slumped on itself.   He answered like he knew what was going on, faking confidence.   "Fairly obvious, isn't it?   I'm injured."
    The boy spoke in a voice like out of some horror flick.   "You're breaking all the rules today, Enforcer.   You stay out of our business, we stay out of yours.   Right?"   The light came on again, flooding light from underneath the boy's chin.   "But you're in my home now.   And you shouldn't be, should you?"
    For all the childish dramatization, there was a sincere vileness in the boy's eyes.   "I can return the favor," Jay promised.   He looked like an Enforcer and if he acted like one he might have some kind of protection.
    The light flicked off.   "Looking the other way?   Extra supplies?   I don't think so, Enforcer."   Jay heard someone approaching from the side, the jingling accompanied their movements.
    "I can get you more," Jay tried.   It sounded good, at least.
    "I've enemies, allies, soldiers and servants.   I'm in the Game .   What else do I want, Enforcer?"   There was a ringing by Jay's ear.   Bells dangling, held by some invisible hand.   "You know the rules."
    No, I don't.   I have no clue what this Game is.   Jay struggled for a response that wouldn't give him away.
    The bells dropped on the floor.   "Pick them up."
    "Um...no."
    "Pick up the bells," the boy said again, turning on the flashlight and pointing it at the object on the floor.   It was a thin bar, shaped in a complete half pie with miniature bells--like tiny cowbells--hanging off the arcing side.   There was a tiny line, a joint in the center of the straight side of the bar.
    "Didn't your mom teach you never to bother bigger boys?"   Jay pointed at his gun, forcing himself to stand straighter and look intimidating.   "I'm not playing your game."
    "Yes, you are."   A light red glow emerged in