I jumped over my third fence of the day. This was three more fences than I had planned to jump when I rolled out of bed this morning. I reached down to my belt and keyed the radio there connected to my collar earpiece.

“Unit 3212, proceeding west-bound down an alley near 134 Ave”, I grunted into the mic. I hoped I didn’t sound too out of breath. I was already expecting a ribbing when I got back to Squad.

“Copy Unit 3212, west-bound down alley” the dispatcher responded. The female voice sounded amused. I couldn’t quite pick out who was working the radio today, but this wasn’t the first time I had chased this particular scumbag. And the girls always found it funny when the suits got out into the field.

I turned my attention back to the chase. I could still see the perp running about 50 meters ahead of me, but he was visibly tiring. I was familiar with the sensation. The enormous initial dump of adrenaline was evening out, and his body was remembering, “Hey, we don’t exercise.” Few criminals had “daily runs” very high up on their “To-Do” lists. It tended to take too much time away from “doing drugs” and “being a piece of human garbage.”

“STOP!” I yelled for what seemed like the three hundredth time. I put a little more mustard on it this time. I knew the perp was getting tired. I hoped that stopping was starting to sound like a good idea. As if reading my mind, Billy Williams slowed to a jog then a quick walk. Then he put his hands on his knees. I pounded to a stop ten feet from him. Billy straightened and put his hands on his head, turning to face me.

“I can’t go back inside, Dep,” Billy wheezed between labored breaths.

The alley where we finally stopped running was mostly shadow pockmarked with light. The angle of the midmorning sun only allowed direct access high on the brick wall to my left. The rest was diffused through antenna, fencing, and other urban detritus, leaving us in relative gloom. It was unseasonably warm for October in Texas and there was more sweat on my forehead than there should have been.

“Jesus Billy, what’s with the road-runner routine? We’ve done this dance before,” I keyed my radio again, “Ten two five with the subject.” The officer protocol dictated that I should now tell dispatch to slow any responding units. Something wild in Billy’s eyes kept me from it. The thought of patrol cars speeding toward me was comforting. They’d be here soon. The rooks loved an old fashioned foot chase.

“Copy Unit 3212, in contact with the subject, do you want us to hold the station?” dispatch responded. The radio operator replaced her amusement with professionalism. She wanted to know if they should stop all radio traffic for a moment until I got the suspect in custody. You know, in case something bad happened like I had to open a can of whoop-ass on this little shit.

“I can’t go back,” Billy repeated, sounding more serious this time. “I won’t do another bid.”

“What are you talking about, Williams? You pawned a hot iPad. You didn’t murder the President. You can do one hundred and eighty days standing on one leg.” Billy had more time in the county jail than in grade school.

“Nah Dep, Judge told me. Next time TSP. I won’t do TSP. Not anymore.” Billy didn’t sound like he was talking to me anymore. He was staring down at his forearm. It looked like he had some new ink. Wasn’t on his sheet that I could remember. TSP was Texas State Prison, end of the road for a lot of these two-bit gangsters. The county clink didn’t faze people like Billy, but he wouldn’t last 10 minutes in the Big Time. Too emotional.

“Come on, Billy, you know the score, those judges talk tough, but they always take pity on poor schmos like you.” This was true. Career criminals like Billy usually got 5-10 “next times” before they finally got sent up. This was the first time that Billy had mentioned the judges warning to me. I had a good two or three more years of cleaning up his drug-fueled crime sprees.

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“Nah. This is the end of the road. I’ve changed Dep, awakened. I can’t do state time. Not now, I got plans. People to serve,” Billy fixated on his new tat. He gripped his forearm like he was trying to do a taxing bicep curl. He was starting to hemorrhage sweat, and a vein stood out on his temple.

“Unit 3212, ten four? Do you want the station held?” Dispatch asked again.

“Unit 3212, Alhambra, hold the station for a moment,” I responded. It was common to refer to dispatch as the county you were in. It helped in multijurisdictional incidents. Something was off. Billy was acting strange. He usually didn’t use three-syllable words. Even worse, I was getting the Weird Feeling. Like when you were a kid, and someone dropped ice cubes down the back of your shirt. It happened sometimes, and the results were never good. I walked toward Billy with my hands out to my sides in a “cool it” gesture.

“Hey, Billy, relax, man. We just gotta go in and talk about the iPad. You go do your 180. Get clean. Three squares. Get caught up on your reading.” I’m sure the issues of Pill Head Monthly were piling up.

Billy didn’t smile, and he didn’t look up at me. The surrounding air seemed charged, heavy. Billy’s arm shook as if he were straining to lift something heavy. His arm contorted at the elbow as if something gave way, and he took a huge breath. I then noticed that Billy’s new tattoo was glowing, a dull red like an overripe sunset.

“We ain’t going nowhere, Dep,” he looked up at me and smiled his gap-toothed smile. It was then that I noticed that Billy’s eyes were glowing the same color as his tattoo. Another hand full of ice went down my shirt.

“What the fuck, Billy!” was all I could think of to say. I pulled my OD green Sig Sauer P320 from my belt rig. I paid extra for the Cerakoting, but hot damn if the pistol didn’t look sharp with my green fatigue uniform on range day. I didn’t point it at him. Billy wasn’t threatening me at this point. But I sure as hell didn’t like the direction of things.

“I got the call, Dep. The big time. The game. No more pills, no more clockin.’ Doing man’s work now, I got no time for the law.” Billy hoisted the arm with the now glowing tattoo and looked at me with his now glowing eyes. Billy’s right hand flared to life with the same ominous red light. What the actual fuck. The air took on an oppressive quality like we were in an air-tight chamber, and someone was pumping more air into it. My ears throbbed, and I felt like I was laying down in a bathtub full of ice. The glow in Billy’s hand intensified as he extended his arm toward me.

“Ignacio!” Billy screamed. I was sure that was a word that Billy had never used before. The glow from his hand exploded toward me in what I could only describe as a bolt of energy, like some straight superhero, comic book shit. The bolt covered the distance between us in a blink. I had no chance to move. As the red blob hit me, it disappeared. Not like it bounced off, or I absorbed it. Like it ceased to be. Ended. Finito. I looked down. I wasn’t smoking, and there wasn’t a hole in my shirt or my body armor. I didn’t feel any pain or see any blood. I looked back at Billy. His eyes were still glowing but dimmer. His hand was back to normal, but someone had turned his ink up to eleven. It lit up the alley like a tanning bed, turning the gloom ethereal.

“No!” he screamed, “No. That’s not possible.” He looked tired, at least more tired than a junkie that ran five blocks should have looked. You could take the bags under his eyes on a two-week vacation.

“No fucking shit Billy, you’re a doper, not fucking Iron Man!” Now I pointed my gun at him. I was pretty sure Billy Williams, a two-bit mope with the most generic name in the world, had tried to incinerate me. I had no fucking idea what box that checked on the Use of Force form, but I was sure it was in the “Deadly” section. “Put your fucking hands up and turn around. I don’t know what games you’re playing, Billy, but I WILL fucking ventilate you.”

Billy didn’t respond. He was straining again, lifting his imaginary weight. I took a step forward and pointed my weapon at his head. “I am not warning you again. Don’t make me do it,” I said as I wondered if I could justify shooting him. My gut told me he had tried to kill me, and he was gearing up for round two. But if I aced this mook right here, that was probably the end of my career and my life as a free man. No one would believe that he shot a fireball at me like Mario that magically disappeared. It would look like I just gunned him down.

The air snapped again, and Billy’s hand was alight with red energy once more. Two voices spoke in my head, their voices overlapping. The first was my father, who told me, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, and you’re a dumbass.” The second was my Defensive Tactics instructor, who told me, “When the train’s coming, you step off the track.” Heeding both pieces of advice; I took an enormous step to the left. As I moved, I adjusted my aim to the right, tracking Billy’s center mass. Another ball of light flew from Billy’s hand with an audible grunt.

This time the ball didn’t disappear. It whooshed by my right side and struck a sizable metal dumpster behind me. I felt a wave of heat and the dumpster, well, disintegrated? Exploded? Those are the words that came to mind. I can only tell you what I saw. One moment I saw a metal garbage container with Binnie, the city’s “cute” recycling mascot, painted on the side. The next moment I saw a pile of ash and scrap metal and no Binnie. This motherfucker had no concern for the environment.

I was now 99.9% sure that Billy Williams had tried to Murder, Death, Kill me. Time to give him an engraved invitation to the smoke show.