Something Wicked

by Brian Harmon

She stared deeply into his eyes, as if searching for something. He wanted to look away, but he didn’t dare let his eyes wander for fear of where they might come to rest.

  Finally, she nodded, as if having found what she was looking for. “Okay then. Wait here a second.” She stood up and hurried off across the room.

  He took the opportunity to down the rest of his beer and then pushed the mug away.

  His cell phone chimed at him.

  SHE MUST BE REALLY PRETTY. YOUR HEART IS TOTALLY RACING RIGHT NOW

  “I thought you were talking to Karen.”

  I WAS. SHE SAID TO WATCH YOU AND LET HER KNOW IF SHE NEEDED TO DRIVE DOWN HERE AND SHOOT YOU

  “Thanks a lot.”

  HAPPY TO HELP

  He looked out into the bar and spied Holly talking to the chubby monkey bouncer. Almost completely naked and tiny as a pixie by comparison, she looked more surreal than ever.

  Again, Eric scanned the room. A couple of middle-aged men at a nearby table were staring at Holly with hungry expressions, but otherwise, everyone’s eyes were either on the stages, the tall, black-haired woman, the cowgirl or on their drinks. The old man appeared to have nodded off. Nothing seemed out of place, as far as he could tell.

  There didn’t seem to be a dark wizard in the room.

  Of course, if there was, he wouldn’t know what such a man would even look like. He probably didn’t resemble Voldemort.

  (He still wasn’t sure he was the right person for this job.)

  A voice overhead asked for a warm welcome to someone named Margarita, and a sultry, young Latina woman appeared on the center stage wearing tall heels, cutoff shorts, a lose tank top and quite a lot of jewelry.

  Some kind of hip-hop theme, he guessed. Or maybe that was just her style. It was hard to say.

  The Dirty Bunny didn’t exactly reek of class.

  Eric looked back toward the girl he came here for.

  Chubby Monkey didn’t look happy. He stood towering over Holly, frowning through his fuzzy beard. But he seemed to reluctantly agree to whatever she was asking of him. He supposed it must be hard to argue with a sweet, gorgeous, butt-naked redhead no matter how big and tough you were.

  Holly turned and hurried away. She didn’t come back to the table, but instead darted quickly back toward the front of the room. Eric watched her scamper around the stage with the now completely naked patriotic dancer and disappear into the door that led backstage.

  When he turned back again, Chubby Monkey was lumbering toward him.

  “Get up,” he said.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Get up.”

  Eric obediently picked up his phone and stood. The big man seized his arm in a steel grip.

  I’m being thrown out, he thought. The girl must have found something about him suspicious. She must have told the bouncer to get rid of him.

  What the hell was he supposed to do now? If she refused to hear him out, there was no way he was going to get her out of here. He’d never get past these bouncers. He’d have no choice but to return to Delphinium alone.

  As they started moving, Eric realized that they were walking not toward the ramp leading out the front, but toward the same door Holly had disappeared through.

  Perhaps they tossed riffraff out the back, where they didn’t upset the other customers. Or where this gorilla could happily beat him into pulp and throw him out into the cornfield without any witnesses…

  “I like your beard,” he told the bouncer as they crossed the floor. “Looks soft. Do you condition?”

  The big man’s beady eyes washed over him, but he didn’t respond. Eric would never know, he supposed. He wished he had something to defend himself with.

  Or a banana.

  They ducked through the doorway (well, one of them ducked; Eric didn’t have to) and slipped into a dark, empty corridor.

  Eric glanced through an open door and caught sight of a plain-looking, middle-aged woman with huge implants. She appeared to have taken a break in the middle of putting on her costume to smoke a cigarette. She sat looking back at him, completely topless and wearing a bored expression on her face.

  About halfway down the hall, they passed the bouncer with the big moustache. Eric found himself mashed up against the wall as the two brutes squeezed past each other.

  He caught a glimpse of a blonde in a nurse costume and felt such an overwhelming sense of surrealism that he actually stumbled a little. He was beginning to wonder if this really could all just be a very bad dream.

  Then, abruptly, he was steered to the right and through a door, into a small room littered with cheap costumes and accessories. Here, he was finally released.

  Holly was here. She’d removed her tie and garter and was pulling on a cute pair of frilly pink and white panties.

  “Mitch is going to give me hell when I tell him I let you leave early,” the bouncer told her.

  “I know,” she told him, turning to look at him with only her panties on. Those pouty lips were hard to resist. “But it’s an emergency. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

  He stood there, staring at her.

  “I’ll make you some more of those cookies you like so much. How about that?”

  He stared at her a little longer. Eric didn’t think cookies were going to cut it with this guy. But then he said, “With the macadamia nuts?”

  She smiled up at him with those pretty eyes. “I know what you like.”

  The big guy sighed. “Fine.”

  Holly stepped forward and gave him a brief hug. As she did, he stiffened, and his beady eyes grew bigger. He looked uncomfortable.

  “Thanks, Norval. You’re the best.”

  Eric looked up at him again. “Norval?”

  The big, furry man took a step toward him, swelling. “You got a problem with my name?”

  “Not at all. I like it. Reminds me of Scooby Doo. Shaggy’s real name was Norval, wasn’t it?”

  He stared at him for a moment, as if trying to decide where to punch him. Then he said, “I like Shaggy.”

  “Me too. He was my favorite.”

  “Spelled different, though.”

  “Is it?”

  “It is.” This fact seemed to make him a little sad.

  Holly slipped into a little blue jean skirt and then sat down and pulled on a pair of pink sneakers. He wished she’d hurry up and put a top on.

  “You better not get any funny ideas,” Norval warned him. “Holly’s not like some of those other bimbos. She’s a good girl.”

  Eric held up his hand as if swearing scouts honor. “Absolutely not,” he assured him. “I’m married.”

  “Sorry,” said Holly, hopping up again. “I’m hurrying.”

  She slipped into a bra that matched her panties and then quickly put on a yellow tank top over it. Then she grabbed her purse and turned around. “I’m ready.”

  That feeling of surrealism washed over Eric again as he realized that he was only now seeing what she looked like dressed.

  Norval led them back out of the room and then all the way to the end of the hallway to a cramped storage room and an emergency exit that opened out the back. As he pushed the door open, revealing the vast green of the cornfield stretching out behind the building, they heard shouting from the far end of the hallway.

  It sounded like some sort of commotion on the dance floor.

  Norval turned and looked back the way they came. “What’s that all about?”

  Eric felt a familiar dread creep into his belly. Something was happening. And he was sure it had something to do with why he was here. “We should go,” he told Holly as Norval set off back down the hallway to see what was going on.

  “Wait,” she said, looking after him. “Something’s wrong.”

  “I think you’re right. And that’s exactly why we should leave. Now.”

  But she didn’t leave. “Emily,” she breathed, and then she bolted back down the hallway before he could ask her who Emily was.

  He curse
d. They were so close! They were at the door! He’d seen the sunlight in the dusty cornfield, smelled the hot, July breeze. It was all right there… Right through that door…

  The fire alarm went off. The voice on the loudspeaker shouted something Eric couldn’t understand over all the noise, and a half-dozen women in all states of undress emerged from their dressing rooms to see what was going on, crowding the narrow hallway.

  Holly disappeared into the crowd.

  Chapter Seven

  Someone shouted something about a fire, which certainly explained the alarm. The curious timing of this fire, on the other hand…

  Eric pushed his way through the hallway, calling out for Holly and hoping he didn’t get knocked over and trampled by a stampeding herd of deadly stilettos.

  Some savior he was turning out to be. Delphinium had only asked him to come and find the girl named Holly and return her to the farmhouse. How hard should it be? But he hadn’t even managed to get her out the door before the place caught fire. If he were Del, he’d be very disappointed with him.

  For the most part, the backstage scene remained calm. The women looked concerned, curious, but not panicked. They were bustling about just enough to make it hard to navigate the cramped corridor. Most were taking the time to quickly dress themselves before evacuating the building. But a few of them weren’t risking it. The nurse he’d glimpsed on his way to Holly’s dressing room shoved him aside, knocking him against the wall on her way to the exit.

  Eric didn’t care if a fire had broken out in a crowded club or not. That was just rude.

  Keeping his back to the wall to avoid any further costumed assaults, he pulled his phone from his pocket. “Can you tell where she went?” he asked. His voice was lost under the wailing of the fire alarm and the shouting of the women, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t even have to speak the words aloud. It was merely a force of habit.

  NO. BUT I DO FEEL SOMETHING

  “What kind of something?”

  NOT SURE. BUT IT REMINDS ME OF DELPHINIUM

  Eric looked up and scanned the busy hallway. The Indian princess ran past him, her huge implants bouncing obscenely. “Magic?”

  MAYBE. I DON’T KNOW

  He nodded.

  The noise grew louder and more frantic by the door leading out onto the dance floor. Whatever panic had broken out in there was slowly making its way down the cramped hallway, moving through the small crowd like a living thing, carried on the women’s voices as news of the suspiciously timed fire spread through the building.

  He had to find Holly quickly. He moved farther down the hallway and called out for her, but of course she wouldn’t hear him in all this chaos.

  He leaned into the nearest dressing room to see if she’d gone in there and promptly collided with a busty brunette as she rushed out of the room. She was in her underwear, clutching her clothes and purse in her arms. She yelled at him to get out of her way (using very unladylike language, no less) and smacked him hard on the shoulder before shoving past him, shouting, “Pervert!”

  “Sorry… My bad. I guess…”

  A man at the far end of the hallway was shouting over the crowd, probably urging everyone to remain calm and exit the building in an orderly fashion.

  Eric pushed his way through the oncoming traffic and checked the next room.

  Holly was here, frantically helping two of the other dancers into their clothes. He recognized one as Margarita, the girl who replaced her on the middle stage. The other was a skinny blonde with a sleeve of tattoos covering most of her left arm.

  Emily, perhaps?

  “Holly!”

  She looked up at him. “There you are!” She looked relieved to see him.

  “Who is he?” demanded Margarita as she fumbled with her shirt.

  “A friend,” replied Holly.

  Margarita (if that was her real name) sized him up, as if she’d instantly decided she didn’t like him, yet she made no effort to hide her exposed body as she dressed. In fact, she turned toward him, almost daring him to try something.

  He ignored her and focused on Holly. “What are you doing? We have to get out of here now!”

  “No shit,” snapped Margarita. “What tipped you off? Was it the fire alarm?”

  “We’re hurrying!” Holly promised him.

  Margarita said something in Spanish. Eric didn’t understand it, but somehow he was sure it didn’t translate into anything very nice.

  “Where’re my pants?” asked the tattooed blonde.

  “Over there.” Holly gestured toward a chair next to where Eric was standing. A pair of khakis were neatly folded there. In a building full of skimpy skirts and cheesy, revealing costumes, they were a curiously welcome bit of normality. Eric picked them up and handed them to the girl.

  “Thank you,” she said. In stark contrast to Margarita, who spoke loudly and clearly didn’t hold anything back, she was timid and quiet.

  “I couldn’t leave yet,” explained Holly. “Not without making sure my friends were okay.”

  “Well we’ve got to hurry.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. But I can’t leave without Emily.”

  “I’m fine,” insisted the blonde. It seemed that she was Emily. That was one mystery solved, at least.

  “I wasn’t going to leave without her!” said Margarita, sounding insulted.

  “I don’t need looked after!” insisted Emily, but no one seemed to be listening to her.

  Eric wasn’t sure why Emily needed everybody’s help, but he didn’t ask. He glanced out into the hallway, watching for anyone who looked like a murderous, dark wizard. (And, of course, wishing he knew what a murderous dark wizard actually looked like.) “What’s going on out there, anyway?” he asked.

  “Fire,” replied Margarita, as if it were the stupidest question she’d ever heard. “Duh.”

  “I mean, how’d the fire start?”

  “I don’t know. I ain’t no expert on fires. But it started at the bar. Some kind of explosion, looked like. I was on stage and I just saw this big fireball. Then shit got crazy and I got out of there.”

  Eric turned and looked out into the hallway again. A young woman with fine, black hair was approaching from the direction of the dance floor. When she saw him, she stopped and stared at him as if startled, her wide eyes bright and green. Like Holly, she looked almost too young to be working in a place like this. But at least she was fully dressed. She wore faded jeans and appeared to have found a jacket to cover herself with that was several sizes too big for her.

  Embarrassed to have surprised her by hanging out in the dressing room doorway like some creepy pervert, he turned away from her again as she hurried on toward the exit.

  He could smell the smoke now. It was rapidly filling the building. Soon, the air in here would grow noxious.

  Margarita finished dressing and grabbed her purse. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We’re almost ready,” Holly assured her.

  “Come on! She can put her shoes on outside!”

  “She’s right,” agreed Emily, taking her shoes from Holly and clutching them and her purse to her chest. “Let’s go.”

  Eric looked out the door again, wary for any unpleasant surprises. He wasn’t just being paranoid. There were often unpleasant surprises at times like these. But he still saw no sign of an evil wizard. Instead, the naked cowgirl rushed down the hallway and into the room across the hall. A moment later, she emerged, carrying an armload of clothes. When she saw him, she stopped, her blue eyes wide and afraid. “There’s something out there!” she told him. “In the smoke! I saw it! It wasn’t human!”

  Eric opened his mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  The girl stared at him for another moment and then looked back the way she came, as if she expected whatever she’d seen to come running down the hall after her. Then she bolted for the exit.

  That wasn’t good.

  Eric looked back toward the stage. Something not human… Big surpr
ise. Probably some kind of terrible monster. He’d seen more than his fair share. “Holly…” he called.

  “We’re coming,” she promised.

  He looked back at her. “We shouldn’t still be here. I really think we’re in trouble.”

  Holly snatched her purse off the shelf and gripped Emily’s hand. “I know. I’m sorry. We’re ready now.”

  “Keep your eyes open. Something’s not right.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” snapped Margarita. “What’s not right?”

  But Holly clearly understood. She looked back at him with wide, worried eyes.

  “Follow me close. Let’s go.”

  But as he stepped out into the hallway again, he nearly collided with Norval, who was dragging a familiar form toward the emergency exit. It was the old man, the one who’d been sitting at the next table while Eric was waiting on Holly the first time. Clearly, he was far too drunk to evacuate on his own two feet.

  “I thought you left already,” said Norval.

  “I was worried about Emily,” said Holly.

  “We have it under control,” he assured her. “But you’ve got to get out of here. Fire department’s on the way.”

  “What did you see in there?” Eric asked. “Was there anything in the smoke?”

  Norval looked down at him, confused. “What do you mean?”

  “One of the girls said she saw something in the smoke.”

  It was clear by his expression that he hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. “Must’ve been confused. It’s hard to see in there. Smoke’s bad. You need to get out of here. I’m serious.”

  “Yes,” agreed Eric. He might’ve been right. In the panic, the curvy, blonde cowgirl might have only imagined seeing something unusual in the smoke. But in his experience, it was also just as likely that she hadn’t. “Let’s go. Now.”

  Holly nodded.

  “Here, take this with you,” said Norval, depositing the old man into Eric’s arms. Not being nearly as freakishly strong as the burly bouncer, he barely managed to keep from dropping the poor guy into a drunken pile on the floor.

  Norval turned and headed back toward the dance floor.

  “Be careful!” Holly called after him.