by Garrett Cook
“Thanks. I almost feel responsible.”
“Disturbed is disturbed, Ian. That kid wasn’t your responsibility. Try to have a good time. You deserve it. You know what you oughta do…”
Ian goes white as a sheet. “Don’t even say it.”
“Fuck, Ian, you should know I’ll say it. I didn’t think you were so shy. You’re more important than bullshit like that.”
Ian smiles. “I’m an internet celebrity, Elyse. It’s like being the biggest rockstar in Rhode Island or the king of the West Virginia opera scene.”
She looks almost coy as she tries to push him into sneaking off. “But those guys didn’t get an invite.”
He looks longingly at the stage lit corridors. I know that he’s not going to be able to resist this. Cass has managed a minor personal victory by getting some gossip out of the topless girl at the door. This means that I’m momentarily out of her scrutiny. I know she wouldn’t approve of me killing Ian, but this is something that she’ll just have to understand. This is too sweet a chance to pass up, to kill a Reap guru in his moment of weakness as he stands in the highest bastion of Reap culture. The hallways will have very little scrutiny, the chambers will be very private and screaming won’t be that foreign of a noise here. Not to mention that of course the Contessa has her house built in a Safe Zone. When he sneaks down the corridor to the left, one lit in a satanic red instead of a violet and still full of smoke, I follow him, padding lightly and slipping through the places where the crowd is thickest.
I am a spirit in the smoke, most likely a model of stealth in comparison to Ian’s brand of “sneaking.” Ian’s idea of stealth is tiptoeing and hunching over like Abbot and Costello in a mad doctor’s lab. I just stay close to the walls and make long, quiet strides. He peeks through doorways, not knowing what he’s looking for. An interview? A scandal? An orgy? Nothing seems to interest him down the first of the corridors, nothing at all. The smoke is thicker as he continues down the hall, which branches in two directions. He stops and thinks for a moment which one would make more sense, but then comes to the realization that he wouldn’t know where to look if he tried. He picks the right corridor. So, of course, do I.
The mansion proclaims how much is hidden there, in the emptiness and smokiness of this corridor. The fog machines are running at their highest here, making it possible to just stroll down the hallway and see into the open rooms, which must proclaim their charms while the corridor hides their location. The scent of drugs is almost as thick as the cheesy dry-ice smoke and fog. Inky sweet opium wafts through the fog, as if we were walking in the mind of some Romantic poet. What kind of party is this Contessa throwing when it starts to remind me of Coleridge’s brain? Among the opium and smoke scents, there is a tinge of something sort of metallic, sort of earthy. Blood. Now he’s getting close to something interesting. But he’s still not quite isolated enough for me to stab him. I’m getting sort of impatient, but I can’t compromise the kill on a whim.
At last, the smoke fades and there is only darkness. He moves toward an open door and I get behind him. I get ready to drag him over here, choke him and then run him through, but I stop. Ian is stunned by what he sees inside. I would be, if it weren’t for the fact that I have to find some place to make sure I’m really concealed. Beyond that door is something I didn’t think I’d see tonight. Something I wasn’t quite prepared for. I have to choke back a sob, but Ian can’t. He falls to his knees and even in the dark I know that there’s a look on his face that says “how could you, God? Where are you?” I don’t blame him for it. I feel a tinge of camaraderie finally seeing something sicken him. It affirms our shared humanity and our shared observation of an inhumanity.
A young woman with hair dyed an emerald green lies back on a steel table. She is naked, her breasts plump and firm, with huge, pink nipples. Her belly protrudes a bit, round and unbalanced, not quite fat, since she’s in good shape, but obviously pregnant still. A look of religious ecstasy is on her face, eyes wide and looking up toward a Heaven she thinks might be close. She doesn’t need her arms held down, but two of the Contessa’s girls do it anyway. They seem to think that something would make her move, would make her run. I hope so. I hope she runs down the corridor, with those girls following her, I hope she gets to the ballroom and I hope she gets the hell out. But, that’s not her intention. She plans on sitting through whatever procedure is ahead.
This isn’t when Ian starts crying, nor is it when I get the sense to hide. No, it takes a second for that. That second is brought on by a tall, nude figure stepping into the light, though at first she is visible only from behind. Her long, jet black hair extends halfway down her back. Her body is toned and voluptuous with a large round ass the color and texture of linen. This smoothness makes her skin look pristine, but when she turns around, angling herself almost as if she were showing everyone in the hallway, this is revealed to be quite untrue. Stretchmarks cover her large, perfect breasts, and on her lean stomach are various scars. They lead down and interconnect, forming a pattern like the veins of some obscene, scarlet, leaf. They lead down to her inner thighs and almost to her kneecaps. She stands proud of her nudity, never having tried makeup or surgery to do something about all of her cuts. The pride of Whitechapel girls in their fright makeup looks so silly next to the badge of honor that she makes from all of her cuts. This is what they longed so much to be, a proud carcass, a symbol of triumphant victimhood and a pure, unfettered exaltation in death. But, the nobility of her bearing and the authority in her eyes, only slightly visible beneath the ornate half-mask on her face, show that she is something more. This woman feels herself the Persephone to Jack’s Hades. The sculptures all make so much sense to me now. From Ian’s fall prostrate, it is clear that he sees it just as plainly.
The Contessa’s knife seems to come from nowhere. I am certain this is my nerves and my knowledge of what might happen next, but it FEELS like an act of dark magic. The eyes blaze beneath the black, feathery halfmask, and she mumbles something that I feel glad that I don’t hear. I am fairly certain hears it. She runs the blade down the woman’s belly, caressing it, gently teasing it. I feel a moment of relief. Some kind of kinky Wiccan S&M thing. Just some kind of fetish play. She repeats the motion, mumbles something else and bends down; gently kissing everywhere she traced the knife. The woman’s face registers pure pleasure and reverence. Her wide eyes close and a moan escapes her mouth. The two girls once in silent witness echo the coos of satisfaction and seem to shake a little in anticipation. I no longer feel the relief when I see this. I want to flee, but I want even more to see what happens, to feel Ian suffer at the hands of his passions. I have to watch.
The knife traces the path one more time. The Contessa finally speaks. Her voice has a faint New England accent that even her position in Reap society couldn’t free her from.
“Just as I gave mine, gave my child, gave my husband, so too do you give, to let him, the serpent’s emissary live. Give with pleasure, give with love. One is present to witness. He sits in the hallway. He sought to see something special tonight and he shall. Know that your gift is witnessed and your gift brings joy and life. Glory to the Morningstar, glory to the noble serpent. Your gift brings joy and life.”
“My gift brings joy and life,” the pregnant woman mumbles and the Contessa lowers the knife one last time. She is not kind this time, this time there is nothing erotic. There is only a cut, a long, vicious cut that rends the flesh open. She follows the cut again, combining precision with brutality, and the girl’s eyes open. There is no longer the worshipful gaze of the cultist. There is now the pathetic shock of a drunk stabbed in a bar brawl. This couldn’t be happening, her eyes say. Although she submitted so eagerly, she couldn’t have imagined the pain. She stares at the open wound. She stares at the opening of her womb. The girls prepare spools of surgical thread, showing brief disgust at what they’ll have to sew back up. I’ve killed so many, but my eyes are usually not with me this firmly. My eyes want to go, but I don�
�t let them. I have to bear witness. I have to see how Jack is fed. There must have been so many others.
The Contessa reaches in to the opened womb and takes from it something small, porcine, and piscine, a fish, a pig, not a person. It couldn’t ever be a person I don’t think. But I know it is. I get the urge to run in there and kill them all, to let Jack starve for a day, but the Contessa and the girls will know who I am if I do. Maybe they’d know who I was if I killed Godless Jack or Hacksaw Sally, but if I killed Godless Jack, it wouldn’t matter that my cover was blown. I’m scared too. I hate to admit it, but I’m terrified. I feel the darkness and the power emanating from that room, something nobody with a sane mind and a penis could or should understand. When I try to move, my limbs feel like they’ll collapse under the blasphemy. The Contessa takes what in three months would have been a baby and deposits it in a large tub of distilled water on the floor. Perhaps this is to sanitize it, but I have a feeling that it’s also so it keeps.
The Contessa walks out into the hallway and looks down at Ian. I hold my breath, knowing that if I’m heard, I’m as good as dead.
“Was that enjoyable, Mr. Sterling? Do you really think you were worthy of witnessing something so sacred?”
Ian bursts into tears. The answer is obvious.
“Come with me,” she says. It takes him awhile to get to his feet, but he comes with her, and for some reason, though I stay close to the walls and sneak as best I can, so do I. At the end of all the twisting hallways, she opens a door and leads Ian in. Two girls are waiting, half naked, each one brandishing a heavy length of chain. They bow when she enters. I’m amazed that the Contessa’s bold enough to never close her doors. She wanted someone to see her devotion, to watch and be sickened and be amazed. She wants someone to watch what happens to Ian as well, and that someone will be me.
“How can we serve you, Milady?” one of the girls asks.
“Make sure he never wants to tell anyone.”
They nod and she goes. Ian doesn’t put up any resistance when they chain him to a pair of manacles hanging on the wall. This woman’s Gothic and Medieval sensibilities really start to get on my nerves. One girl grabs a syringe and another length of chain. Ian’s eyes go blank and glassy when the first girl injects him. The girl with the length of chain opens his shirt and removes his pants. I have a feeling I know what lies ahead, and yet, I don’t look away. The chain hits him heavy in the chest, and then on each leg. The girl with the syringe abruptly thrusts the tip into his balls. He doesn’t even look present enough to scream, though I know damn well that he feels it.
I don’t know exactly what prompts me to do what I do next. I imagine it’s some of that pity that I keep telling myself is a mortal sin. No man should die like this, even if he does serve the Dark Ones in his way. No man, that is, save Godless Jack, whose friends and hangers-on do this to a man to keep him safe. I cannot see the Dark Ones, but I feel them present. I feel them in the cruelty of each of these girls, in the dire acts done for the Contessa. I thought that I would kill Ian tonight, but things change. I spring the blade of the swordcane and I do something thoroughly irrational; I go blazing in like Errol Flynn. I swear that somebody walking down the hallway might have caught a glimpse of me, but it doesn’t matter.
I catch the girl with the chain from behind, slice the back of her knee with a low sweep. She turns, bleeding and confused, to take a good, solid left hook to the side of her face. She swings the chain and hits me good in the side, which makes me want to drop the swordcane and get running. But I don’t. Instead, I slice her in the throat. She holds the wound, surprised and staggers back. The girl with the syringe tries to run, but I won’t have it. I trip her, and finish her by stabbing her in the belly. The girl with the chain falls to her knees and would beg if it weren’t for the fact that I cut her throat. Instead, I go low with the swordcane, stabbing her in the heart.
A drugged and half-conscious Ian looks at me, and I remember that friend of his giving me a ride home when I was thoroughly sloshed and incapable of conscious thought. I owe Ian Sterling a favor, I remember. While I kind of saved his life already, more needs to be done. I open up the manacles and let him loose. He looks at me through blurry eyes, looks at me ten feet away from the gates of Hell and he asks, “Mr.400?”
“Yes, Ian,” I reply, “it’s Mr.400.”
“Thank fucking God,” he says before fainting. I break the window. Anybody who tells you that jumping out a window with a six foot five inch tall man slung over your shoulder is easy is a fucking idiot. I don’t fancy ever doing this again. I deposit him in the car and put him on the steps of the hospital. I’ve been a Good Samaritan, so I leave him with an ultimatum.
“I’m leaving you on the steps. If you can get to the lobby, maybe you’ll get treatment and live.”
So Ian does something that finally makes me stop hating him that makes me his friend: he crawls inside. Naked, covered in bruises and delirious, he still manages to crawl inside.
First Blood
I can’t get my mind off Ian in the hospital. It will be a couple days before he’s ready for visitors. So, I need something to get my mind off this bullshit. Maybe that’s not the best reason to go after a dangerous lunatic. But, this is a dangerous lunatic who needs someone to go after him. He’s killed one hundred four women over three years, almost one a week. He’s a real predator who isn’t going to stop just because he’s famous or rich enough. Last night Jeremy told me why Jack had the luxury of the retiring, and I wish I didn’t know. All these others aren’t going to retire and they’re not going to jail. Jeremy was brave last night. Jeremy gets to be brave all the time. So, I’m going to be brave now.
My counterattack checklist seems short. For the last raid we were armed to the teeth, but that’s not an advantage I’m going to have. My checklist contains two items: revolver and Jeremy’s syringe. Use the latter, then the former. Remember not to accept any food or drink. Any food he gives you is poison. Any drink he gives you is poison. He never meets at a restaurant, that’s one way I knew it was him when I called in about the classified ad. Mr. Right prefers to meet at his apartment. Every girl in America knows what he looks like, but they don’t see him until they’re in the apartment. If he’s recognized, he’s quick and dirty. .44 magnum to the head. Nothing you get to survive. So I can’t let on that I know who he is. Not at all. I don’t follow Reap. I don’t have time to watch the news.
I find myself taking the long way, I find myself driving too slowly. I find myself almost getting lost. I find myself horrified. There’s a good chance I won’t come out alive. Jeremy yelled and screamed and told me not to. He reminded me how many this man had killed, how bad he was and how I shouldn’t do it. I reminded him there was no way he could. Only a woman can get close to Mr. Right or at least close enough to kill him. He didn’t know what to say, he just kept on going on and on about what a bad idea it was, making it even harder than it should be. None of the other girls will have a chance to fight back, and I needed a chance to fight back against Reap. Reap had almost taken a friend and a boyfriend from me, and Reap could very well take him for good. I had to do this. I have to do this. But I make this car hesitate for me. If I drive slowly, it feels like it’s the car’s fault. Stupid Jeremy. I’ll get there already nervous.
But of course, the city catches up to me, the apartment and the block ahead are catching up to me. I feel so tiny. I feel like I might need the big man who yelled at me not to do it and who told me I could get hurt here. I don’t want that. Rage comes in. I can’t let Jeremy be right about this. I won this argument. He helped me out the door, he gave me the gun, and he gave me the advice. I’m not too timid to kill a man. It’s all a big schoolyard, and he’s coming between me and being right and he’s coming between me and my dignity and I can’t let him get away with this. I breathe deep and then I remind myself that I can’t go in angry or nervous. I cannot go in if either of the two things I feel is in control.
I stand straight, fix my makeup
. Look pretty, look unassuming. Don’t look too unassuming. Too innocent is suspicious. If you look too innocent nowadays you’re either a prostitute or a cop and neither one of them appeals to Mr. Right. Mr. Right is addicted to the seduction, to the hunt and to the notion that he is a more perfect male. Hence the name Mr. Right. Play a little hard to get. I unbutton the top two buttons of my blouse to give him a little something to look at, but not too much. I had thought of wearing stockings, but Jeremy said I’d look too perfect, too eager. So, it’s a black blouse, a modest but revealing skirt and a pair of sensible black pumps. As I walk into the apartment building, I begin to lament the pumps. They’re just not right for running in.
At Le Couteau, I’ve been used to dressing up as a victim, but now I feel like I’m walking into a horror movie. I might be here to hunt, but I’m still an innocent girl entering the lair of a psycho killer. Instead of an abandoned summer camp or a decaying old house in the middle of nowhere it’s a pricey apartment building just touching the Safe Zone at the edges. When I get in there, it’s me and the monster, running away in high heels, possibly to fall and get stabbed. Maybe I should have gone a step further and just decided to wear a towel.
What would Kevin say? What would Neil say? They always said don’t be a victim. They taught me how to fight and that sometimes there was no option but to fight. I’m going into a place where there’s no option but to fight. They never told me act like a lady, they never told me to run when danger rears its ugly head, they said to fight. Remember the girl who took your coat. Remember the little preppy bitches in high school. Remember Godless Jack and remember your rage at Jeremy. Here it is, my chance to be that thing I felt like I needed to be every now and again to say sane. I smile. I can’t believe I can muster a smile. I smile, and I’m confident and I’m going on a date. The fear subsides a little.
