Behind The Hands That Kill (In The Company Of Killers #6)

by J. A. Redmerski

  I ignore him.

  “Victor was right,” I tell Naeva. “When Apollo and Artemis found out I was still alive, they wasted no time coming after me.”

  Naeva glances around the dimly-lit room, probably looking for another wheelchair with Artemis tied to it. But all she’ll see are a few water damaged boxes piled in one corner, a rusty crotch-rocket motorcycle frame leaning against a wall, two miss-matched end-tables pressed against an old water heater. But no Artemis Stone.

  “Or, Apollo came for me, at least,” I correct myself, and then I look at Apollo. “No sign of Artemis yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Right, Apollo?” I smirk at him. “Or did your sister abandon you? Leave you here to rot like you deserve?”

  Apollo smirks right back at me.

  “She’s doing what she has to do,” he says. “She’ll come for me soon. And when she does, she’ll finish the job she started—how’s that scar feelin’, anyway? It’s not lookin’ any better.” He smiles. “It never will.”

  I grin. Then I reach up and touch the still-healing scar across my throat with my fingertips.

  “Actually, I kinda like it,” I say. “It’s proof that I’m not easy to kill.”

  “Well don’t forget,” Apollo says with a gleam in his eye, “that Artemis has one just like it.” Then his smile spreads, and he adds, “Seems you have a lot in common with my sister. Near-death experiences. Matching scars. Victor Faust.” If he was trying to get under my skin—of course he was—then it worked. He’s used that against me a couple times since I dragged him down here. But I always openly ignore it.

  I move closer to him. “I look forward to the day I can face her fairly,” I say. “Just me and Artemis. No rules or ropes or bars between us. We’ll see how similar we are then.”

  Apollo bites down gently on his bottom lip, and his dark eyes sweep over me like a man mentally savoring his sexual prey before he eats it. He smiles with intrigue, and moves his tongue slowly in-between his lips. “Y’know, Izabel,” he says, “I’m all for my sister getting what she wants, but I’d never really want to kill you myself. It’d be such a waste. I can think of a hundred things I’d rather do to you.”

  “Is that so?” I say, continuing to move closer; every step I take dripping with sexuality and purpose. I stop right in front of him, and I lean over, grabbing the arms of the wheelchair in my hands; I purposely let my breasts fall before him, barely covered by the thin white tank-top I’m wearing. “Tell me what you’d do to me, Apollo Stone.” I lean over farther, to tempt him further.

  And he takes the bait.

  His eyes stray, and he looks into my shirt—I look down at his lap, clearly able to see the hard bulge growing behind the spandex-like material of his boxer-briefs. He looks into my eyes, wanting me closer, and so I give him what he wants and I lean in so close I can feel the warmth of his breath on my mouth. “I want to switch places with you,” he whispers, “and throw your thighs over the arms of this chair, and then spread you open with my tongue—slowly—before I fuck you with my fingers.”

  “And then what?” I whisper.

  “And then I’ll shove my fat cock down your throat, and fuck your mouth until you puke.” It was meant to offend me, I know, but I can’t be offended by someone I don’t give a shit about.

  Grinning, I lean away from him just slightly, and then look across the short distance at Naeva, whose eyes are wide with shock, and repulsion. “This is what I’ve had to listen to the past twelve hours,” I tell her, shaking my head.

  Then I pull back my fist and send it crashing into his face; blood trickles from both nostrils—his nose is already broken, courtesy of me during the first hour after he woke up in the wheelchair.

  Apollo laughs as blood streams down over his lips and into his mouth. He spits a little on the floor.

  “Do what you want with me,” he says. “I kind of enjoy it anyway. Say, when are you leavin’? I’m looking forward to that meatless piece of ass taking over.” He smiles at Naeva, showing his bloodied teeth.

  She makes a horrible face.

  Making a face myself, I wipe Apollo’s disgusting blood from my hand onto my tank-top.

  “I wondered why you had blood on your clothes,” Naeva says. She glances back at Apollo. He puckers his lips at her and kisses the air. She looks away from him quickly. “What are you going to do with him? Are you going to tell Victor that you have him here?”

  “No,” I answer immediately. “Victor will just kill him. I want him alive. I’m not done with him yet.”

  “She likes me,” Apollo tells Naeva, wriggling his eyebrows. “Look, I really need to take a piss. And when are you going to feed me? I could do with a burger and some fries.” I start to walk back toward the staircase and he calls out, “You can cook can’t you? I don’t want any of that cheap fast-food bullshit!”

  Naeva follows me up the steps.

  “I have someone coming to take over for me while I’m in Mexico,” I tell her.

  Apollo’s voice carries up the stairs.

  “I changed my mind!” he calls out. “I want a steak! Medium rare! A side of homemade mashed potatoes—keep the skins on! Some macaroni and—”

  I close the basement door, shutting off his voice. Most of it anyway; I can still hear him muffled through the walls and the vents, and I’m suddenly wishing I hadn’t forgotten to put the gag back into his mouth.

  “Who’s going to watch over him?” Naeva asks.

  She follows me into my bedroom. I sit back down in front of the vanity and get back to work on braiding birth control pills into my hair. From the corner of my eye I see my cell phone screen light up, indicating a call. I ignore it and let it go to voicemail.

  “I hired outside help,” I say. I see Naeva, in the reflection of the mirror, sit down on the foot of my bed. “They’ll be here in an hour to take him to another location. In case Artemis shows up, which I fully expect that she will. Sooner rather than later.”

  “Sarai?”

  The concern in her voice makes me look up and pause what I’m doing.

  “Yeah?”

  She hesitates, maybe searching for words, and then asks, “I don’t know you outside from what I’ve heard about you through Brant, and I know the girl I knew all those years ago when I first met you is long gone by now, but I don’t have to know you to see that you’re deliberately pushing my brother away.” She points at the door, indicating Apollo down the hallway. “He has people looking for Apollo and Artemis. You have one of them in custody right now, but you don’t want him to know. And then the whole thing with you going to Mexico alone.” She glances at the floor, then back up at me. “Don’t get me wrong—I’m not judging you, I just don’t understand what you’re doing. I…I guess I just…”—her gaze strays again, her expression clouding over with a deep-rooted pain, it seems—“…I guess I just can’t imagine pushing away the man I love for any reason. When you find that one person you know you were meant to be with, to live and die with, you do just that—you live and die with him. For him, if you have to.” I know she means well, but the only person she’s thinking about right now is that man, Leo.

  I turn around on the little stool to face her instead of her reflection; I drop my hands from my hair and place them into my lap. “You’re wrong, Huevito,” I say softly. “The girl you knew all those years ago, is sitting right in front of you.”

  She looks at me for a long moment, seeming in search of her own understanding of my words, or rather the ones I refuse to say, and then I turn around and go back to braiding my hair.

  “We leave for Mexico in five hours,” I tell her. “Are your tubes tied?”

  It takes her a second; perhaps she’s surprised by the question, but she answers, “Y-Yes.”

  “Good,” I say. “Now, I’m gonna need you to hit me in the face.”

  “What?”

  Snapping on the last tiny rubber band around the end of a braid, I get up from the stool and walk toward her.

  “I need you to hi
t me in the face.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’d rather it be you than Ray—he doesn’t seem the type to wash his hands after he takes a piss.”

  After Naeva beats the shit out of me—she’s stronger than I expected—and I rip her clothes and rough her up a little myself, I spend the next five hours telling her everything she needs to know, and the role she needs to play. I admit, I was worried about her tagging along in the beginning, but after only a short time, I realize she needs no training. Naeva is, unfortunately, even more experienced than me when it comes to underground Mexico.

  Victor

  The stars will die before we do, Izabel…the stars will die before my love for you does. I am not good at these things; I am inexperienced. Romance. Gestures of affection. Words weaved together poetically to proclaim love. Gifts and smiles and laughter and conversation about the simple things in life—I know nothing of these things. They make me uncomfortable, the way that embracing my father would have made me feel if I had not killed him, or crying on my brother’s shoulder. I may never understand these rituals, these feelings. But we have an eternity to find out. It takes an eternity for a star to die.

  Those were the words I wanted to say to Izabel the last time I saw her.

  If she had come here tonight, I would have worked up the courage to say them. I thought that she…no, I had hoped that she would come to see me one last time before she left for Mexico. I called her, but she did not answer, and so I left a voicemail with cryptic details only she would understand about the hotel I am temporarily staying in. For the night, anyway. I wanted to remain in Boston tonight, close to the residence Izabel and I once called home. Just in case.

  But I know she is gone.

  I glance at my Rolex. Four a.m. I wonder where she is. I wonder if I will ever see her again. Or if the talons of her old life with sink into her, fatally this time.

  Clenching my fists, I resist the desperate urge to go after her.

  I resist.

  I resist…

  Instead, I picture her radiant smile, and the light in her eyes, and her laughter, and her warmth. I picture the first time I saw her, hiding in the backseat of my car, and I remember the first time I heard her play the piano. And I wonder what I could have possibly done to deserve her. All I have ever done is wicked. I am a monster in the shadows; the blood of many stains my gnarled hands; the souls of the innocent are forever caught in my blade-like teeth.

  So how can this be, that even an ounce of light be given to a monster such as me?

  I go to the window of my top floor hotel room and gaze out, not at the glittering city, but at the stars fully awake in the early morning sky. And I see her, Izabel, Sarai, in every single one of them. And this is how I know, that because of her, because I see her in everything, I am not only a monster, but a man.

  LOOK FOR THE SEVENTH BOOK IN THE SERIES, IN THE COMPANY OF KILLERS…

  -A GLIMPSE INTO FUTURE BOOKS IN THE SERIES-

  (Note that the following books are not listed in any particular order. Also note that the following books are not the only books left in the series. Lastly, please note that as storylines progress in the series, some titles listed here, as well as the content accompanying them, may change.)

  “Life is not is journey, nor is it a destination, it is merely an experience in which no one possesses genuine control; paths are never chosen, but taken, blindly, as if walking through a dark corridor, barefooted, where the ground is soft in some places, but sharp, and missing, in others. There is no God; there is no puppet master pulling the strings; there is no Heaven or Hell; there is only Life and Death—all of the in-between is merely existence. Because, after all, a flower that grows in a meadow, is just a flower that grows in a meadow.”

  The victim cries out as the blade splits his flesh, the hand that wields it, delicate and precise; the arm that moves the hand, frail and soft; the shoulder that connects the arm, dainty and flawless; the mind that controls it all, tranquil and unhinged.

  “I’ll tell you aaanythiiing!” the victim screams, his voice booming in the small confined space. “What do you want from meee?! Unnn-Ahhhnnn!” He passes out from the pain, his head lolls to the side; blood from his missing teeth drips from the corner of his mouth onto the shiny metal table his body has been strapped to.

  “I want the roots that give your petals life,” the Red Lotus answers, and continues cutting.

  “Look at me, Fredrik,” Seraphina says; her slender fingers grip the man’s bloodied cheeks. “Look at me, my love—you can do this; you can because you’re strong, and because the demon inside of you is hungry”—she wrenches the man’s face, digging her fingertips into his flesh—“and it can’t live on blood alone. Mine never could.”

  I never liked killing. Torturing, I could do—I had to do—but not taking lives. I was afraid of it, afraid of wearing the suit of God—it never fit right. I had killed before, many times, but only out of rage, or vengeance, and only those directly responsible for making me what I am. But this man, sitting naked at Seraphina’s feet, covered in blood and bruises, has never done anything to me. I don’t know him, aside from his criminal record.

  “I thought this was supposed to make me feel better, Seraphina,” I say, lowering my head; I stare absently at the pliers in my hand. “I’d rather just continue to…do what I do, to feed my demon.”

  Covering his whole face with the palm of her hand, she shoves the disoriented man backward; he falls against the concrete, moaning.

  “It’s not enough,” she says, stepping into my space; the smell of her lipstick, as always, intoxicates me. “It’s the hunger,” she whispers softly, but with determination. “It’s why you can’t sleep at night; why the nightmares of your past continue to rape you, over and over again.” I feel her fingers winding within the back of my hair. She traces my lips with her tongue, and then bites my bottom lip, drawing blood. I grow harder. “You can’t just punish them, my love. Kill him and you’ll know serenity and ecstasy you’ve never known.”

  The sound of rushing water from the dam below is vociferous in my ears, but Artemis’s voice threatens to drown it out. The wind is strong and brisk; I feel myself conscious of it, part of my brain mindful of the need to ground me in case it threatens to knock me from my feet. But I will allow nothing to take this moment, this opportunity, from me. I finally have Artemis in my grasp. And this time I will make sure I kill her—I cannot let her do it herself.

  “This is what you always wanted, Victor!” Artemis shouts over the angry river; she opens her arms out at her sides. “To snuff me from existence!”

  I make another move forward, but then I stop, because I know if I do not, she will jump.

  “Come down from the edge,” I tell her. “I do not want you dead. I want to talk. That is all.”

  Artemis laughs, immune to my lies.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she says, pointing at me, “I’ll come down and let you be the one to kill me, if you can promise me one thing. Are you a man of your word, Victor Faust?”

  “Recently, yes,” I tell her, thinking of how Izabel changed me.

  I motion for her. “I give you my word.”

  Artemis studies me for a moment; the wind whips through her long, dark hair, and pushes her blouse against her. Then carefully she steps down and comes toward me. I grip the knife in my hand, eager to plunge it into her heart.

  She steps up, and then reaches into her pocket. She places a folded piece of paper into my hand.

  “Promise me,” she says, looking into my eyes, “you’ll protect him.”

  The table I’m supposed to meet the woman at could be any one of these; the woman could be any one of these women, too. The brunette sitting in front of the large window, stirring her drink, dolefully; the African American woman in the booth with the glittery clothes and spicy high-heels; the sexy blond sitting with a man half her age. It’s my job to know which one. They’ll kill me just for getting it wrong.

  I choose the m
ature woman sitting under the lamp light; scotch on the rocks on the table in front of her.

  I sit down in the empty chair, and she looks up at me.

  “How’d you know I was the one?” she asks, bringing the glass to her lips.

  “You’re the only woman in this bar satisfied with who she is,” I answer.

  She twirls her free hand at the wrist. “Please. Elaborate.”

  I glance at the brunette.

  “She’s waiting on someone,” I say. “And he’s terribly late. But she refuses to get up and leave, in case he decides to show.” I glance at the African American woman. “She’d be so beautiful if she wasn’t trying so hard. The jewelry and clothes are wearing her, not the other way around.” I nod toward the blond sitting with the much older man. “She uses others for what they have and can give her, because deep down inside she hates herself, and it’s the only way she can get back at the world for shitting on her.”

  The mature woman nods.

  She takes another sip and sets the glass on the table.

  “So what do you have on Victor Faust?” she asks.

  “Everything.”

  -OTHER BOOKS BY J.A. REDMERSKI-

  Speculative Fiction/Contemporary Fantasy

  DIRTY EDEN

  Crime & Suspense

  KILLING SARAI (#1 – In the Company of Killers)

  REVIVING IZABEL (#2 – In the Company of Killers)

  THE SWAN & THE JACKAL (#3 – In the Company of Killers)

  SEEDS OF INIQUITY (#4 – In the Company of Killers)

  THE BLACK WOLF (#5 – In the Company of Killers)

  BEHIND THE HANDS THAT KILL (#6 – In the Company of Killers)

  More to come…

  New Adult Contemporary Romance