Claw 1 Read online

  CLAW 1 of 3

  BY LUCIAN BANE

  © 2016 by Lucian Bane

  All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Lucian Bane or his legal representative.

  To all the readers, fans, and or reader’s clubs. Thank you for supporting my work. I’d also like to ask nicely that you please not Pirate my work. That basically means don’t give it away just because you bought it. If you know of anybody that can’t afford a copy, just send them to my librarywhere I loan out copies for free.

  Also, if you need a different format, please contact me, the author.

  Dedication

  To My Wife. With All My Love.

  Prologue

  The cell door buzzed and opened. I followed Officer Davies out and only nodded at my prison family as I went. All the goodbyes were done the day before and the plan was set. Because, “If you don’t have a solid plan, life will come at you like a hurricane and beat your ass into the first brick wall.” Wisest words Dante would ever hear and they came from his best friend Tin-Tin, aka, the quietest, smartest, and most badass in the entire prison.

  Tin-Tin’s wisdom was the only life line Dante had as he took that final, first walk to freedom. At seventeen, he’d gone from juvenile to prison for murder. He was now thirty two and had long overcome the fear of everything prison could pound into him. But this light approaching him with the smell of freedom? That had him shaking and bracing for Hurricane Real World. He’d never been in it as a man. It was like walking out of the womb of Hell, into life for the first time.

  He’d trained for this. Tin-Tin had made him prepare from the second they’d met. Dante later found out that he'd reminded Tin-Tin of his dead little brother who’d gotten hit by a car at thirteen. Tin-Tin staked a hard claim on Dante the moment he stepped foot on those prison grounds. And he’d been terrified. He didn’t know why nobody touched him, spoke to him or hardly looked his way. Then that wall of muscle known as Tin-Tin approached him with, “You’ll be with me now.”

  Dante was sure he was dead, or prime ass-pie. He’d prefer death.

  A week of hanging with the brooding giant, his ass was still intact but he was still clueless as to why. Then somebody made kissie noises at Dante and Tin-Tin shattered their jaw over it. From that point on, it became clear. There was a God, and Tin-Tin, for some reason, was his guardian angel.

  The reason or purpose for Tin-Tin’s protection surfaced when he sat idly by while ten men beat Dante half to death before finally dragging him out of the circle. “That’s your first lesson,” he muttered in his trombone voice. “This life here? It ain’t nothing but a flash. Fifteen years? That’s coming and going and one day you’re gonna walk out of this place and face your real enemy. You. But I’m gonna make sure when you leave here, you’ll know three things very well. How to think. How to not die. And how to live.”

  For five years, Dante got that lesson literally beat into him over and over while Tin-Tin taught him to get back up, fight harder, and fight smarter. Dante mastered the arts of fighting, but that’s not what got him graduation merits. No, Tin-Tin wasn’t grading him on any of that brute shit, he was grading him on something entirely different. Evading.

  Dante graduated when he became a master at evading conflict. “Now you get it,” Tin-Tin said when Dante decided he was tired of fighting, literally bored to fucking death with it and evaded his first fight. “The real badass is the person man enough to know that avoiding a fight is better than shedding blood. Spilled blood is just messy all the way round. Sometimes we have to do it but if you can avoid it …” he nodded slowly and pointed his huge finger at him. “That’s real power.”

  Dante wasn’t surprised to learn that Tin-Tin was one of the most religious men in the prison. Part of his training came with reading the Bible a dozen times over. “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” he'd said. At that time, it was the fear of Tin-Tin. For Dante, he was the closest thing he’d seen of divine intervention and he wouldn’t soon forget that or disrespect it.

  So he became a student of both real blood and spiritual. Dante never minded. If it made Tin-Tin happy, it was worth it. Tin-Tin became the brother Dante never had, and never would have, in the real world. Tin-Tin was Dante’s spirit brother. “No matter where you are, there are no walls made by man that can keep us apart.”

  While in prison, Dante discovered that having a skill every man respected was one way to avoid fights. Eventually, he’d be known as Claw. And every inch of flesh on the prison grounds would come to bear his signature with his artistic carvings. There was no ink for tattoos inside. But Tin-Tin said art and passion were special angels. And they would always find a way to speak their hidden truths, no matter where their human vessels were. From then on, every time Dante carved on flesh, he felt that divine connection. It was one of the greatest treasures Tin-Tin had given him connecting his art and passion to something supernatural. Made Dante feel like a kind of superhero.

  But now, as he walked away from all that, he felt the hard pull behind him. Dante wondered if every man felt what he did as he left. A crushing heartache. He didn’t want to leave his best friend who served life without parole. He didn’t want to leave his beloved art and trade. He didn’t want to leave the only place he felt at home.

  They ushered him out the prison gates with three things. The clothes on his back, fifty-eight dollars in a cloth prison wallet, and Tin-Tins words echoing in his head. “You get out those gates and you don’t have anybody or anything but a hurricane coming. You just walk. You walk and you don’t look back until you reach town. Don’t take any rides, don’t lift your head, keep your focus on your steps, one after another. When you find the first phone, you look up Rex Hammond. Tell him Tin-Tin sent you, he knows you’re coming. He’ll look out for you till you find your real world feet.”

  Dante did exactly as told. The whole while, he felt like he was pulling off one of the biggest heists in history. Stealing his right to live, to belong in a world he'd forgotten, maybe never knew. But he did it. He pulled it off and nobody stopped him, nobody tackled him to the ground and dragged him back to Prison Hell, his beloved home.

  All too soon he realized that free meant the prison walls had expanded to include the entire world. Evil hid and lurked, waiting for him in plain sight. But Tin-Tin had trained Dante well and already he felt his skills adapting.

  Welcome to planet Earth, Claw.

  No, not claw. Dante. Dante Samuel Baston.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Real World

  Dante reached blindly for his phone, prying one eye open and glancing at the clock. Three in the fucking morning, seriously? He made out an out of town number and dropped the phone on the bed. Machine could sure have it.

  His brain started niggling at him about the area code, like he knew somebody from there. That maybe it was important.

  “Fuck,” he muttered, grabbing the phone and looking at it again. He hit the button for the messages and listened.

  “Hi, uh, my name is Daryl, uh, Bernard. I got your number from off line. Your website? Says you’re a healer. Anyway, I have a need. And I’m willing to pay whatever you charge, money’s not an issue.” Dante perked up at that. “If you could please call me at 359-663-9998, I’d be so blessed. It’s extremely important. Life and death,” he added, almost like an afterthought. “Again money is not an issue. I hope you can call me as soon as possible.”

  Dante hung up the phone and stared at it. Wow. His website? He’d not been on the damn thing in ages. Surprised it hadn’t expired. The dude apparently didn’t look at his About page where he detailed his life. He liked being up front about it. For the first two yea
rs after he was out of prison, he found not telling them just wasted his time. He’d almost gotten countless jobs only to have them pull out when they learned his record.

  So he thought, fuck it. If they were desperate enough for his services, they wouldn’t care about his past. He gave a dry laugh. Either he was wrong on that one or nobody ever needed his services. A year of a lot of nothing, and he marked off holistic healing from his short resume. That left janitorial skills, tattooing, and auto mechanics. Tin-Tin had made him read every book that might give him an edge in the real world. But he was finding that with a criminal record and no actual experience, it put him at the end of a very long waiting line.

  It was a huge disappointment to remove tattooing off his job list. But the tools of the ink trade were different from prison skin art as was the talent. He even tried opening a skin art shop but apparently only having one color—flesh white—wasn’t as desirable as every color of the rainbow. Pussies.

  Then there was his holistic healing love. That too fell dead in the water. Or at least he thought it did.

  He replayed the man’s message in his mind as he laid there, trying not to get his hopes up. He’d sounded like he wore loafers and played golf. Maybe did tea-cakes and coffee by that low, gentle tone. What would be considered life and death to a man like that? There wasn’t any sickness Dante couldn’t treat. He had holistic protocols for every major and minor sickness or disease he knew of, and his success rate—on the few he’d practiced on—was one hundred percent when followed exactly as prescribed.

  He flopped onto his back as visions of paid bills danced in his tired head. He was about to lose his car. His rent, utilities, insurance—all ready to be cut off. It wasn’t much and he didn’t own anything worth a lot but the fact that he’d earned them from honest hard work made them invaluable. More than anything he wanted to make Tin-Tin proud, show him that all his hard work had paid off. Dante had huge plans to make his mark in the world, make enough money and hire a lawyer for Tin-Tin. He’d been convicted of a heinous murder of a five year-old little girl. But Dante believed his story with everything he was. Tin-Tin had been down on his luck and out on the streets. He’d gotten hired as a farm hand and found the little girl half mutilated in the fields. He’d not thought at the time when he tried to save her that they’d see him as the suspect. Tin-Tin paid for the real killer’s sins. Many days he’d said, “What I wouldn’t give to find the man who did that to her.” And Dante knew he said it not to be freed of his sentence. It was to kill him. Tin-Tin still mourned hard for the little nameless girl’s death, a stranger to him. “I saw the pain and suffering in her eyes, Dante. I’ll never stop seeing it.”

  Dante sat up and scrubbed a hand over his head. Five o’clock was coming soon enough. He’d call then. Wait, the dude was in a different time zone. Better shower and get coffee and then call him. As desperate as he sounded, he was probably still shopping and might find other options.

  Dante needed that job. And thirty minutes later, he called the man.

  “Yes sir, this is Dante. Returning your call about needing my help?”

  “Ohhh,” the man’s voice lowered in sudden recognition. He covered the phone and seemed to excuse himself from another conversation and a few seconds later, came back on the line. “Thank you for calling me back on such short notice Mr…” he gave a pained gasp, “sorry, I don’t recall your last name.”

  “Dante Baston,” he said. “But you can call me Dante. How can I help you?” He decided not to tell him about his background just yet.

  “Well, for one, I need this to remain confidential.”

  “Always,” Dante said.

  “See, my wife uh, she has a condition. Several actually. She can’t get pregnant and we’ve been trying for going on seven years. And … well, it’s affecting her mental health. And we belong to a very prominent church and it’s really hard on her.”

  Dante launched into sell mode. “I can help with that.”

  “You can?” he hissed. “We’ve been to every doctor we know,” he half whispered. “And she is very discouraged. She has outbursts of anger and she doesn’t want to leave the house. She doesn’t eat well and she is spiraling into an abyss and I don’t know what else to do,” he finished in a low pained hiss.

  “Is she able to have kids?”

  “Yes!” the man said. “There is nothing in the tests they ran that indicates otherwise. “And I check out fine as well,” he said, answering Dante’s next question.

  “I’ll run some tests and we’ll figure out where her levels are off and what’s causing the misfire.”

  “Oh praise God, so you think you can help her? I cannot tell you how grateful I would be,” he said. “And how long do you think this will take?”

  “I need to assess her levels, ask a lot of questions, and develop a protocol tailored to her physiological needs. It could take me a week for that initial assessment.”

  He gave a gasp with “Praise God. I’ll call her and let her know you’re coming, she’s staying at our vacation home. Can you do this right away?” he hurried. “And money isn’t an issue, I’ll pay you to start immediately.”

  “Let me work up my assessment and I’ll have a price after, how’s that?”

  “Of course,” he said. “Fair enough. Now, I won’t be able to be there for this initial assessment but you have my phone. She’ll be expecting you and I’ll let the maid know as well.”

  The fuck? “Uh, if it’s okay, I’d rather wait till you’re there.”

  “Oh God, no! Please,” he gasped. “Listen, trust me, it’s fine. The maid is there and she packs a weapon—a broom,” he laughed before going serious. “Dante … I feel like the Lord led me to your site, I do. There I was praying and praying in the spirit and I saw the words healing. I had the urging to Google it and hallelujah, there you were, seventh in the list. Seventh,” he cried, like that was the cincher. “I have nothing but peace about it, brother. And I realize how strange that must sound if you’re not a believer, and whether you are or aren’t, I’m not here to judge. And I tell you, I would love to be there for this miraculous work of the Lord, but I am stuck for two more weeks at this job.”

  Miraculous? Whatever he wanted to call it. If only Dante had peace about it. He didn’t like the idea of treating a man’s wife without her husband there, maid or not. But his bills sure the fuck had peace about it. “Works for me,” Dante said, remembering his criminal record. Fuck, did he really want to talk the dude out of his paycheck? It was right there on the website. If he didn’t do his homework, that wasn’t Dante’s problem. “Just need an address.” Shit, and money for gas. “And I do require a security deposit.” Dante said.

  “Of course!” the man gushed. “Name it.”

  Dante raised his brows. “Five hundred is fine.”

  “When, where, and how would you like it?”

  Dante should be loving the dude by now, but instead he was more uneasy. And his religious expressions were only making it worse. Who on the planet threw indefinite amounts of money at ex-cons they knew nothing about and sent them alone to assess their wife? Maid or not, that shit was more than fucked up.

  Dante gave him his bank information and read back the address where his wife was. “What’s her name?”

  “Rin,” he said. “Rin Bernard, and I’m Daryl. And this must be confidential. Please.”

  “Not a problem,” Dante said. “Confidentiality is a standard part of my practice.”

  “Great,” he said with a shrill voice, sounding ecstatic. “Brother, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this. Now, the vacation house is out in the middle of nowhere. But we have a guest house attached to the main house, you can stay there. I’ll pay you extra if I have to, I know this is asking a lot. But I would feel better having you around, I don’t like her out there alone as it is, and while the maid is nobody to trifle with, I worry. And Dante, I trust you. I know that sounds like the stupidest thing you must’ve ever heard, but I assure you, when
I said I had a peace about this, I meant it.”

  Jesus Christ that was fucking nuts. A guest house. “I can stay at a hotel nearby.”

  “The closest hotel is fifty miles out. Please. Use the guest house.” Before he could agree, he said, “I should warn you that Rin is kind of … different. Strange to many people.” Dante tensed. This was where the carpet was ripped out from under his feet. “She rambles and says things that may not make sense or sound … over the top? I’m thinking it’s her condition, whatever it is.”

  “I’m sure,” Dante said, feeling like there was more. “We’ll get to the bottom of whatever it is.

  “And she is a little paranoid,” he said. “Bless her heart, some days she thinks I’m the devil but everything I do Dante is because I love her. I just want to help her. Keep her safe. And if you think I’m a religious nut, wait till you meet her!” He gave a sigh. “She’s a blessing really. A treasure from the Lord and she takes being a wife and servant very serious.”

  That should have made him feel better. But instead, the story of Joseph came to his mind. He’d done twenty years in prison because the wife of an important man accused him of rape after he refused her advances. That would be his luck. “I’ve had my fair share of eccentric patients,” he lied.

  “Yes! Eccentric!” the man squealed sounding more like a kid than a man. “That is the perfect description. And … if you have any questions about her, I suggest you ask me. Again, she’s paranoid and any questions tend to set her off. I just don’t want to give her any unnecessary worry. Obviously if you must ask her, do so, but double check with me to make sure it’s accurate. Like I think she has allergic reactions to some things and she disagrees. That kind of thing. We don’t want to misdiagnose anything.”

  “Got it,” Dante said, feeling like the man could probably stand some mental assessing as well. “I have to get my gear ready.”