by Ana Calin
He resumed the descent, his arm supporting me under my armpit and taking up almost all of my weight, practically cradling me as we made our way down the stairs. We entered the basement through a secluded iron door, the dark space cool, wheezing, and smelling of rubber and paint. I could only see outlines of what I guessed were cars in an underground garage. One beeped, the headlights flashing strident white, in which I caught a glimpse of Damian’s finger on a small remote.
He opened the passenger door for me and slid behind the wheel. The ignition and lights sprang on, and the wow-effect smacked me full in the face.
Even though I couldn’t tell the brand, the interior was luxurious, and the leather seat enwrapped me like a cold cocoon as the takeoff thrust me back. Starship-blue lights, chrome linings. The engine hummed serious horsepower.
I watched, terrified, how the aisle between two rows of parked cars narrowed into a strip as we sped to the exit, a large rolling door lifting from the ground. I shrieked at the prospect of us rocketing straight through it. By the time we reached it though, it had lifted just high enough. After an abrupt turn on a side street and a brake that made the seatbelt dig into my sternum, we slowed down as if we didn’t have a care in the world.
Lights glided by, faint from apartment windows and closed balconies, more colorful from kiosks and other small businesses on ground floors.
I could tell we were headed to the peninsula. The car snaked down the narrow, old streets where the skeletons of pre-war villas rose close to the foamy shores. Time had forgotten much of this part of town, some of it illegally inhabited by large gypsy families and stray dogs.
Dad had decided to place his main lab in this district, precisely because of this. The ruinous, piss-smelling peninsula still had the power to scare nine to five working people away, and nobody in their right mind would think of opening a business here, much less keep top-secret files and classified DNA samples.
Yet it wasn’t Dad’s lab that Damian drove to, but an old villa I knew just as well. It had once belonged to a noble family, and rumor – or legend – had it, that the noble head of the family used to hold secret gatherings behind its heavy doors. As a kid, I used to gawk at it from the beach. Made of gray stone, it protruded like an abandoned castle from its lime base that still reinforced the slope. Its pointy arches and high windows made me think the Evil Wizard lived here. The sight of it had always given me a sensation of dark timelessness.
People said it belonged to someone very rich, who would one day restore it to former glory. They said it was well guarded against illegal occupation. And when Damian pressed a button on another small remote that opened the rusty black gates, I knew he was that someone, and his living in a “shady apartment by the shipyard,” as Leona and Varlam had put it, was a cover.
His nest was here; the Intelligence Service and BioDhrome had no clue. I imagined that, when necessary, he left the apartment the way he had with me tonight. The idea was brilliant. It was common knowledge that pimps and mafia heads lived in that neighborhood by the shipyard, most of their money spent on luxury cars. You saw more Porsches on the lanes of Constanta at night than in proud European capitals, so an intergalactic carriage speeding out of a damp, shady basement at night had no reason to raise suspicion.
Damian parked the car in the basement garage. He opened the door on my side and helped me out of what turned out to be a black Maserati – which sure helped blend well with the mafia bosses out there.
The place smelled of sea and plant. Humidity permeated fast to my bones, and by the time we reached the narrow stone stairs that led up to what must once have been a large reception room, I was shivering.
I followed Damian along chambers that opened into each other, their high ceilings blackened by candlelight and long years. A wider set of stairs led to a library, where ceiling-high bookshelves paneled the walls. Through the arched windows, I could distinguish a distant moon and the ripples of the sea, the sound infiltrating through leaky joints.
I felt transposed in a timeless castle, my feet following Damian automatically. He led me past a piano, its outline emerging like a desolate shipwreck in the moonlight to the doorstep of what appeared to be a bedroom. As he lit the wax-drooping candles on the mantelpiece the flames expanded, light casting undulating shadows on the walls.
Embossments in the plaster drew my attention, at first unclear in the flames’ dance. I squinted, focusing on them, and ice stung me all over. Fear dried the blood in my veins, and it had nothing to do with the cold, the ghostly shape of the canopy that hung like ragged spider web over the bed, or with the architectural jewel of a fireplace, which surely hadn’t seen a flame in years, but with what I saw cluttering the walls. Damian walked slowly to my side, studying me as I inspected my surroundings, frozen.
“This will be your sanctuary from now on,” his voice rippled in my ear. “And your prison.”
I stared, mouth agape. This was it; this was the Executioner’s lair. And it burst with proof that he was, indeed, a monster.
Chapter Four
Blades of many shapes – short, long, curved, dented – were fixed in brackets, and adorned the walls like trophies. They were made of a strange metal, shiny reddish-brown. Nausea pushed the knot higher in my throat as the comparison hit me – the color of human flesh, of muscle, polished and sharpened like steel.
“Upgrade flesh,” Damian clarified as if it were small talk. “The only thing hard enough to pierce living Upgrade bodies.” He ran a finger over the curved surface of a dagger by the mantelpiece, then rubbed it against his thumb like he was checking for dust. “The Order has a blacksmith who makes them. Strange fellow, reminds me of Frankenstein every time I see him.”
He looked at me, a spiteful grin on his face, the grin of a man who’s convinced you hate him, and who wants to give you yet more reason to do so. “And I see him often.”
I stood frozen in place, my ears perking up at the creak of wooden floorboards under Damian’s steps as he walked behind me. The ripple of pouring liquid filled my ears, and when Damian faced me again, he offered a glass of scotch – to help me overcome the shock, I imagined.
I drained the scotch all at once, which triggered a half-amused smile on Damian’s chiseled face. He walked closer, but I backed off automatically. He inspected my face for moments before turning and walking to the fireplace, tossing in logs from the staples arranged like rustic stairs beside it.
“As I told you before, I don’t do lying, Alice,” he spoke in that velvety voice of his. “I am a monster. And I won’t blame it on BioDhrome. In me they found good, raw material to work with.”
He didn’t look at me, but I was sure he could feel my gaze on him as he spurred the flames with an iron poker, his arm muscles snaking under the tightening leather.
The light danced on his face, his devil-like eyes glinting as he stared deep in recollection. “When BioDhrome recruited me, ten years ago, I was still a boy. But not a normal boy. Something was wrong with me. Something had always been wrong with me.” His voice was low, like a sinner’s upon his first confession. He turned the poker in his hand as if it weighed no more than a pencil, the flames surging in his pale green eyes like in mirror glass.
***
The Story of Damian Novac
His father was drunk. Damian could tell by the sound of the pig’s steps on the porch. It made his skin crawl all over. The door opened, and the pig leaned halfway into the house with a hand on the latch. The other hand held onto the chipped doorframe. It looked like he was going to throw up right there on the threshold.
All of Damian’s organs seemed to shrink. Wobbly on his feet or not, the pig’s caning was more savage the drunker he was, and keeping small and quiet was the only way to swerve around his wrath.
Damian’s arms wrapped protectively around little Vlady, pulling him to a corner, both of them skinny prey slinking away from a predator. Little Vlady whimpered quietly, his small body quivering. Damian’s teeth crunched.
“Mir
r-na,” the pig grunted.
Their mother Miruna scurried over, her face white, her hands clenched on her apron. A skinny pale hand eventually unclasped the cloth and made to touch the man once, twice, three times, until she finally dared to slide a ribbon-like arm around his bulk and help him over to the table. He leaned on her, big, plump, and lumpy in his reeking fisherman rags, heavy on the woman’s delicate frame.
He slouched into a chair, while Miruna fetched hot soup from the big iron cauldron on the hearth. Damian regarded her coldly. It had been a long time since he’d called her “Mother,” and even longer since he’d felt love for her. Now, there was a big black hole in the place where that feeling should be.
The pig’s face was fully visible in the hearth light: crumpled, red, and porous in that specific way that marked a heavy drinker. He seemed an ugly clown with that big verruca-saturated nose. The much younger Miruna set a bowl of steaming soup in front of him, and tried to creep away like a dog afraid of a beating.
“Stay,” the pig commanded, spooning his soup, and letting it dribble back into the bowl with a look of disgust on his face. Then he grunted something else, as unintelligible as his wife’s name, but Damian had learned to untangle his words – “This smells like shit.”
Miruna’s face went purple. She babbled an apology, and carefully cupped the bowl with a promise to replace it with polenta, but her husband’s attention had already settled on her in that way that made Damian sick to the stomach.
The pig grabbed her arm roughly, and tugged to make her drop in his lap. Her face scrunched as she resisted, and she lost a small whimper. He kicked her ankle with his foot, causing her to cry out and fall right where he wanted her. He grabbed her face and licked her cheek.
“Vanea, the boys,” she attempted, grimacing.
“The boys,” he said, his tongue still flicking grossly around her mouth. She stiffened, unresponsive, which enraged the pig. He held Miruna’s young face against his, and spat in it. Fury balled inside Damian’s skull. He covered little Vlady’s eyes, protective of the sobbing child.
“It ain’t the boys you worry about,” the pig said. “You screwing another, ain’t ya?”
“Vanea, for Christ’s sakes!”
“Cock’s sakes!” He tore off her kerchief, and Miruna’s dark ringlets swelled down to her shoulders. The pig grabbed a fistful, head-butted her, – that made Damian jump – and pushed her bloody face into the hot soup bowl.
Damian’s ears were now whistling, and the image before him reddened. He heard the pig as if through water, his voice deep, slow, and distorted as he said, “See who’ll do you when your face is all burnt meat.”
Something snapped in Damian’s brain, and lightning tore through the scene before his eyes. All his senses that had told him not to love Miruna in order to stay sane now screamed at him to claw at her attacker.
Damian was permanently angry, the village troublemaker, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew he didn’t stand a chance against the pig. He scanned the room for anything he could use against him, but they lived in an adobe shanty with no electricity and few possessions. The fishing gear always stayed at base to make sure it didn’t get stolen. There was nothing but the hearth, a few cupboards, the cauldron with a few wooden forks, spoons, a ladle, and two cots.
Then he saw it. The crowbar by the door, the one the pig used in order to break into cars when he went on raids into town with his fisher buddies. Damian’s eyes darted from the weapon to his father, and in a split second in his mind, he could see the crowbar tearing the stinking flesh off Vanea’s face.
He still looked from the iron to the pig, his survival instincts still holding him back. Miruna’s ribbon-thin arms flailed all around her, reminding Damian of the woman being suffocated with a pillow in the only movie he’d ever seen at the makeshift village cinema. It hit him that Miruna might die. He sat little Vlady on the divan, and lunged for the crowbar.
He grabbed it and leapt towards his father with an ear-splitting scream, holding the crowbar above his head. But he wasn’t fast enough. Vanea caught his wrist, and, grinning with those yellow foul teeth, forced the boy to his knees. This was hopeless. Vanea was much bigger and stronger.
Fear gripped Damian’s throat. If he didn’t win now, his father would squash his head. His wrists hurt so badly he was sure they’d snap.
Vanea pushed Damian to the wall by the door, still putting pressure on both the boy’s wrists to keep him down. Damian’s mind was blank, only the fear pulsing in his neck, sweat running down his back. He trembled all over.
He pushed off the wall with all his strength, sending Vanea stumbling backwards against the table. In the background, Miruna retreated, her face bright red like boiled meat. Her screams, shrill in Damian’s ears, worked like fuel.
As the pig scrambled heavily to his feet, Damian, full of rage, leapt, and wrapped himself around the man’s back, his bony forearms strangling him. He gritted his teeth, warm liquid gathering at the corners of his mouth, while Vanea struggled like a worm on a hook. Whether the liquid was saliva or blood from some injury, Damian didn’t care.
Vanea threw himself wildly against cupboards and walls, trying to get Damian off him. Glass splintered and cut the boy’s back, and wooden cupboards battered his bones. But he didn’t let go. He was sharply aware – if he desisted now, the pig would hurl him down and step on his head until he squashed it like a cockroach.
Damian grew desperate. He had no idea how to end this, and fear now consumed his veins like fire. He looked around for whatever aid, and grabbed the bag made of sack material that his mother used to gather mushrooms. He slid it down Vanea’s head, and knotted it as tightly as he could. Vanea struggled even more violently, but Damian had the best incentive to resist – staying in one piece.
Vanea’s movements slowed, and he soon toppled in on himself on the floor. Damian feared this was a scheme and, getting off him, he lifted the crowbar, gripped it tightly in both his hands, and brought it down on his father’s back. Vanea’s body jolted and jerked like from electroshock. With cries that sounded more animal than human, Damian lifted the crowbar again, and battered the man who’d fathered him until Vanea was left sprawled in a pool of his own blood.
Damian fell to his knees, breathing hard, and let the crowbar drop with a clang by his side. The feeling that washed over him was very far from the guilt he expected. For the first time in his life, Damian Novac felt safe.
***
I forgot to breathe. My arms were folded tightly across my chest. “You killed your father?” I whispered, straining to keep my voice as soft as possible. I dreaded the answer, all my muscles tight in expectation.
“No.” Damian said matter-of-factly, his eyes like ice.
I exhaled, tightness flowing from my body.
“The village doctor managed to save his sorry life, but he wasn’t able to work anymore. They sent him to a hospital in the nearest town, where he stayed for months. My mother and my brother told the police the drunkard had gotten beaten up in the street, and that I’d only attacked him in his sick drunk imagination.”
“But what about her face?” I said. “How did she explain that?”
“She blamed it on a domestic accident. Plus, it looked worse than it was. Miruna was young, and her regenerative powers at their peak. She was completely herself again within a week, not to mention happy, smiling for the first time in months. But with Vanea in the hospital, the family’s income was too low. I looked for work, but our village was small and resources tight. So I moved to Constanta.”
Slowly, I lowered myself to the floor, watching him like a child would a lion at the zoo – I didn’t want to get too close, but I was also fascinated. I barely dared to breathe, afraid that I might disturb him.
“I found work as a cleaner in the shipyard,” he said. “They didn’t take me on for my physical strength, of course. I was skinny; I’d known hunger for too long. They hired me because they could pay me even less than the others. I didn’t even
have papers, you see. Technically, I didn’t exist.”
He poked at the flames, his triceps flexing under his leather jacket. “All the money I made went to my family in the Delta. I slept on the street. It was the beginning of June, so it felt like freedom rather than a curse at first. But when rainy days came the going got tough, and one of the older guys from work took me under his so-called protection. Kept his reasons in the dark at first, but soon made it clear he expected me to go stealing at night with other urchins he kept around. We all lived with him and his girlfriend Suzana in the ruins of the old Neptune hotel here, on the peninsula.
“Suzana was a hooker, but Liviu didn’t mind. Why would he? She brought home money that she could have used to pay for better lodging and good clothes, but instead spent it on cheap alcohol in large quantities for them both. I lived with them and the other pickpockets, and I didn’t see the faintest light at the end of the tunnel, until a new boss took over business at the shipyard. He paid well, and I hoped things would take a turn for the better. He was nice to me at first. But soon, it turned out he liked boys. And he thought me an easy prey.”
His eyes flashed in the firelight, and his jaw rippled. “One evening he sent me to scrub the rust off the inside walls of a ship belly, where he later got me alone. It’s incredible how people you’d think decent go beastly on the weak. He thought he could overpower me.” He paused.
Afraid he wouldn’t continue, I crawled closer to him. “What happened, Damian?” I whispered.
He continued with the calm of an iceberg, but by now, I knew better. “I scratched his face with the wire scrub. He hit me, hard, and I fell flat on my stomach. But that was the lucky turn. There were tools on the floor, which I used for the more stubborn places where the rust was too thick. A screwdriver lay right in front of me as I came to myself after the blow, and felt him pulling at my pants.”
