LRR Hood

by Cassandra Johnson

  Marik halted at the sound. ‘Was that? No. It couldn’t be. It sounded like a guardian.’ Moving to the couch, he sat down, holding the phone up to his ear as his nostrils flared while he waited for the woman to speak this time.

  “I’d really like to but I can’t. I don’t even know who Gaerik is. Much less where he is. I found this phone.”

  “Cute, but just do me a favor. I don’t have time for his games right now, hand over the phone, lady.”

  “No, really. Someone threw this phone out of a car window in the middle of the Stop and Shop parking lot, which by the way, the shit-hook almost mowed me down in the process.”

  “Tell me exactly how you found the phone if you don’t mind.”

  Maybe she wasn’t playing games with him. Now that he was listening to the sound of her voice it was difficult to tell without being able to see the woman, but there was a calm to it that people who were lying typically didn’t have.

  “Well, I am sure you’re aware of the blizzard going on, so I went to the store to get groceries before I was stranded in the house for a week. I was pushing my cart back into the store when a black BMW almost hit me, and I saw something fly out of the window. When I came back out of the store, I slipped on it and fell. Hurt my ankle too. I figured I’d take the phone home with me and see if I could track down the owner and give it back.”

  Gaerik was on the run. Someone had already gotten to him, and Marik had a good idea just who that someone was. It was as if thunder rolled in his chest as something akin to a growl purred through the muscles. Leaning his forehead into the palm of his hand. He didn’t know what to do. His brother had already killed once that he knew of, was stalking someone else, and to top it all off. He had no idea where he was or where to even start in looking for him.

  There was only one thing left he could do right now. Get his phone back. Of course, Gaerik would have all of his contacts on his phone, and his brother was nothing without his resources. Gaerik had lots of friends in low places.

  “Where do you live, I’m coming to get the phone,” Marik said, straightening as he stood, shutting the light off in the living room, seeing how late it had gotten outside as he collected himself and locked up the apartment.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re a stranger. I might sound stupid, but I’m not. I’m not telling you where I live.” Elle said thinking that for the first time since this little tête-à-tête started she was being smart, and it was no longer funny. She should have just left the phone where it lay in the snow, and kept her snoopy little nose to herself.

  Since the beginning of this Marik had never imagined the woman might be afraid to reveal her location, which made the wheels of his mind begin to turn again. She probably was just clever enough to make up such a story to hide her favorite boy toy, AKA his bastard of a brother.

  “It appears we have reached a dilemma then. I can’t leave the phone with you, and you won’t tell me where you are.” Making his way towards the elevator, Marik already knew what he was doing as he put his phone on speaker and began to press a few buttons activating the GPS program on his phone. While the information loaded, he waited for any opportunity for the woman to prove him wrong. He really didn’t want to drag his brother out of some strange woman’s home in the middle of a blizzard by his testicles.

  “What if I just mailed it to you?” Elle suggested fumbling around in the drawers of her coffee table for an ashtray and a cigarette. After a good meal, it was always a tradition, so was coffee, but now her hands were already busy.

  “So, you get to have my address, but I don’t get yours?” Exiting the elevator, he stepped out into the built-in parking garage headed for his car as he pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck in a pitiful attempt to shield himself from the blistering cold.

  “What about a post office box? I have one. Or we could meet somewhere.” Elle was thinking somewhere very public, so if he decided to place a white cloth full of chloroformed over her mouth and drag her away, there would be plenty of witnesses. She’d read, wrote and watched far too many mysteries because now her mind was spinning with every conspiracy theory and kidnapping story that her feverish and bored brain could conjure up.

  “Who the fuck keeps a post office box these days?” ‘Doesn’t she have e-mail?’

  “Excuse me, sir, but did you not just hear me say that I have a post office box? They come in very handy when I want to hear from people, but don’t want them to know my exact location, namely my home address.”

  “Why the hell would you want to hear from people that you don’t want to know where you live?” Marik caught a glimpse of himself smirking in the rear-view mirror of his Range Rover as he placed the phone on the hands-free pedestal on the dash and backed out of the space. Thanks to modern technology he now already had her home address and she wasn’t that far away. Just a quick jump on the interstate and he might be there in fifteen to twenty minutes depending on the traffic from the storm.

  “There are certain…circumstances.” Elle trailed off gently. Did she want to tell this stranger that she pedaled smut for a living by way of ‘romance’ novels?

  She was probably pen pals with prison inmates in the state penitentiary, and that was how she made her living. There were all sorts of sick people out there in the world and unfortunately his brother had a way of attracting them like flies to a pile of fresh dog shit.

  “What kind of circumstances?” He laughed mirthlessly as he maneuvered the truck through the icy streets which by now were mostly deserted now that Blizzard Colby was upon them. He would have no problems reaching her home. Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house, we go.

  “Well, the sort of circumstances where people like you and you like them, but you don’t want them to show up on your doorstep one morning for breakfast.”

  “Hah!” Marik laughed out loud as he found a few cars stranded on the side of the on the ramp, flashers blinking, but he had no time to be a Good Samaritan and help them out. He had a weird-o American mail order bride to find and a brother to beat the living shit out of.

  “What’s so funny?” Elle asked, somewhat confused by his abrupt outburst. In retrospect, she wasn’t sure why she felt she needed to explain herself or why she even cared what this stranger thought of her, but it was probably the writer in her. No matter how many times she told herself it didn’t matter how many millions of people hated your work, it was only the millions that loved it, but she always struggled. She wanted to be the best, to be loved by all that new her name or her pen name anyway. That one person who hated her books would always be the one that drove her crazy, screaming as she asked the question if only to herself, ‘Why won’t you love me?!’

  “Oh, nothing. I just thought of something funny.” Marik said pulling up to a four way stop. “Since I’m not going to get anymore from you I’ll be going now.” He smirked and reached over and ending the call to leave the GPS up on his phone so he could follow the map to her house.

  Chapter Seven

  “Wait…” But he’d already hung up. Why did she even want to talk to him anymore was the question she found herself asking as she looked at the now blank screen. Gaerik’s background was rather generic. Nothing interesting. It was probably the factory default that was on the phone when he bought it. Sighing, she slumped back down into her seat and looked over at Gregory. He seemed just as confused as she was but probably for a completely different set of reasons.

  “G, do you think I am so desperate for human companionship that I would sit and talk to a stranger on a lost cell phone?”

  Of course, the dog didn’t answer her, and she wasn’t expecting him to, but while she had buckled down to her writing; she had completely forgotten about the human need to be around others of their species. Frowning she shook her head.

  “How about some cookies?”

  Gregory’s ears perked up at that suggestion as she decided to just forget about the phone and concentrate on other things. Just
what those things where she hadn’t decided yet. Elle’s brain was in that stagnant phase it always seemed to go into after finishing a book. There were a few projects sitting on the back burners on her laptop, but she just didn’t have the creative juice to jump into them right now. What she needed was some time off to let those creative juices start to percolate in the pot again. Speaking of which she put on a pot of coffee before she crouched down to dig a cookie sheet out from under the island. Gregory came into the kitchen with her again. Her ankle was feeling a little better, the Advil was finally beginning to kick in, as well as the ice pack she had strapped to it, which now felt like nothing but cold, wet water on her foot. Tossing the ice pack back into the freezer she took out a tube of pre-made cookie dough and stripped the peeling off with a knife.

  “It’s not like grandma used to make, but they are pretty good,” Elle assured the dog as she began to slice the chilled log of cookie dough.

  Turning the oven on, she then lined each disc of cookie dough onto the baking sheet while the oven warmed up.

  She glanced around her kitchen. Elle hated dirty dishes, she also hated washing them by hand. Elle never thought of herself as being spoiled. However, once she moved into her house, she quickly found out that she was. Elle liked having a dishwasher to load her messes into, and with the click of a button, she could forget about them.

  Rolling her sleeves up, she turned the hot water on and began to stack everything into the sink. Dipping her hands into the hot water, she began to think about her strange telephone conversation.

  Despite all her better judgement, she wanted him to call again, though she refused to admit that she was lonely. Elle had done quite well the past couple of months without the company of a man while she was finishing her book. What was stopping her from enjoying the solitude that was her every waking minute now?

  Before she could dive too deeply into that can of worms, the buzzer went off on the oven telling her that the pre-heat was finished.

  Soon she would have some piping hot cookies to sink her lonely teeth into.

  Placing two cookie sheets into the oven, Elle crossed her arms over her chest for a second as she turned to see Gregory watching her every move now. She was thinking about the last time she was with a man, she wasn’t exactly a loose woman, but she was an adult with natural desires, and she didn’t care to have a steady boyfriend. Those were more trouble than they were worth. She’d tried it before, and she always found herself feeling self-conscious to discuss her obsessions with them. Usually, they laughed at her.

  ~

  Gaerik saw his features blurred in the stainless steel of the elevator doors as instead of going up, he was headed in the opposite direction; basement level was his destination. He was the type of man who collected favors from everyone that he knew and some of those people weren’t always on the up and up.

  Stepping out of the elevator the basement wasn’t what you would expect. It wasn’t dirty, it wasn’t dark. In fact, the overhead bulbs hummed with heat and were so bright that the light hurt his eyes. “Mr. Chalicemen?” A deep thundering voice spoke, the midnight black giant that said his name wore nothing but military black.

  “Yes.” He responded.

  It wasn’t until he confirmed his identity that the man moved for the first time.

  “Wait here.” Turning, he placed his hand on the console on the wall. Finger print protected. What could have been mistaken for another wall appeared as the door opened and the giant disappeared inside.

  Gaerik never asked questions about where or how his contacts came to acquire certain things, and they never questioned Gaerik about how he ’procured’ some of those things for them, and he liked it that way. Glancing around at the ceiling tiles he noticed the camera in the corner of the room, and he lifted a hand silently to the camera in a one fingered salute.

  It didn’t take the guard very long because he stepped back out, the door once again sealing shut and disappearing behind him as he handed over a black duffel bag and a set of car keys.

  “Mr. D’Angelo sends his regards.” He said tilting his head back towards the camera, and for the first time, a smile cracked his face revealing razor sharp fangs behind the dark berry lips. Vampires, always a flare for the dramatics.

  ~

  Driving around the block twice he pulled into the snow-covered driveway of a little white house. With the snow, every house looked white, but with his acute eyesight he could tell not every house on the block was in as pristine a condition as the one he sat in front of. Skeletal trees surrounded the property, and a two-car garage sat before him. He would have bet his life on the fact that if he looked inside, there would be a black BMW parked inside next to whatever crappy car his playmate drove.

  Gregory’s ears came up as he stood, growling and beginning to pace in front of the kitchen door. The hackles on the dogs back stood up all the way down to the tip of his wiry black tail, the pupils of his teddy bear, brown eyes shrinking into non-existence while the growling in his throat grew deeper and deeper.

  “It’s just the wind, boy,” Elle said, trying to soothe the animal. She remembered he always hated thunderstorms. From outside the house, the crunch of boots landed in the packed snow, already rising to the man’s shins as he came around to the front porch and stepped up in front of the red door. Marik had never learned to rely on his sense of smell or his instinct, what good were they now when all their matters were handled by a Council that prided itself on diplomacy? What would end their race was wolves like his brother. Completely controlled by their raging hormones and blind instinct.

  Outside the door, Marik could hear the deep seething growl of an animal from inside, the female’s voice inside telling him it was the wind. While his nose wasn’t as acute, his ultra-sensitive hearing was. Raising his hand, he knocked on the door three times as an explosion of deep, booming, angry barks pounded his ear drums from the other side of the door.

  Stumbling back a step or two it sounded like there was an entire pack of dogs inside the house from the way it sounded causing Marik to reach up and slightly tug at his left ear; the one most sensitive to high frequencies. Damn, she’s got one hell of a guard dog.

  He now knew that what he had heard over the phone and the sound that summoned his feral instincts to stand upon a razor's edge were true. Gaerik was inside, he had to be. Obviously, this woman meant a great deal to him if he had gotten her a guardian. An animal, typically a dog that possessed the spirit of the wolf. They were at odds with the rest of nature because within one beast hid another. Perhaps she wasn’t just ‘another’ woman, what if he had mated to her? The guardian inside seemed none too pleased to have an unexpected visitor.

  Grabbing the knife, she was using to slice the cookies off with Elle knew something was wrong. Gregory had never gone off like that before. When she was a kid, there were always strangers coming up to their house, and none of the dogs ever lost their mind the way that the mixed Border Collie was right now. Carefully shuffling up to the door, she peeked out the peephole but saw nothing but darkness. The dog was trying to wedge himself between the woman and the door itself and whatever danger stood beyond its borders. “He’s got his finger over the peephole.” She whispered to the dog as if somehow that made much of a difference. Elle also made the natural assumption that whoever was knocking was a man. Again, the knocking came, but harder this time as she stood shaking on the other side. She should open it? Should she call the police? What was she supposed to do? Elle had never found herself in this kind of situation before. Even if she called the police would they be able to get here in the blizzard? And what would she tell the dispatch? Someone’s banging on my door, what do I do?

  Hearing her whisper from the other side of the door, he glanced at the cold reddened index finger he held over the peephole of the door. Marik knew that it was the wrong thing to do, but given the odds that Gaerik was inside, he couldn’t let his brother slip through his fingers when he was so sure that he was right on the other side o
f that door. He was probably in the bedroom scrambling into his clothes. The last thing that he wanted to do right now was go on a wild goose chase for his brother.

  Again, the three-time knock came at the door only this time much harder than before. Gregory went berserk, lunging himself against the solid oak door, making it rattle on its hinges. Panicking, her knuckles were gripping the handle of the knife so hard that her hands were turning white and her hand hurt. She had written moments like this in her books, and she thought quickly to Delilah. What would her alter ego do in this kind of situation? Well, obviously, she would shoot first and ask questions later, but Elle didn’t even own a gun. Here she was a woman alone with only a newly found old friend who showed up on her doorstep just in the nick of time. Elle didn’t own a real weapon, she had a tiny keychain mace and a rolling pin that was lost in the depths of her kitchen cabinet. What was a woman to do?

  Her body pressed against the wall as Gregory’s nails began to scratch into the façade of the door, spit flying. Flipping the dead bolt and grabbing the knob, immediately the dog already knew what she was thinking as he backed up, the muscles springing and jumping in his haunches as she turned the handle and threw the door open just as the black collie leapt in a mad fury of enraged snarls, jaws snapping at air as he flew connecting with his intended target.

  “Mother fucker!” Marik caught the guardian in the chest as he felt himself propelled backwards off the porch and into the ever-thickening snow in the yard. White stuff flew as he held the beast by the neck as it snarled and tried to snap at his throat to take out his jugular. Fighting for his life at that moment his hand was caught in the animal’s mouth, making him howl in pain as his free hand came up in a fist against the dog’s rib cage. It didn’t shake him, the beast only seemed to fight even harder for his mistress, his muzzle getting coated in blood quickly as he moved down to his wrist beginning to shake it, the natural instinct to grab one’s prey by the neck and shake until you felt the snap of bone. Rolling in the cold, he began to power slam every muscle in his body into his punches as screams from the house came like a siren in the night