The Fifth Descent of Lexi Montaigne

by R. S. Darling

  Someone ‘shooshed’ him. Virgil crept quietly out of the busy church.

  The Castle of Prague sat enthroned in a hillside, crowned by sunlight, the hoary old structures of the city rimmed by brilliant glares. Virgil smiled and inhaled the crisp wind coming in off the Vltava River, which sat soaking up insane acres of light. His smile fled and the purity of the air grew polluted with the stench of betrayal as he spotted a man under a trilby across the square.

  The man, dressed in a white suit to match his hat, wasn’t looking at Virgil, but the New Yorker perceived an impossibly small camera in the hands of the man under the trilby.

  Virgil turned and made for the Hlavni nadrazi station, his pace quickening after looking back and noticing that the man under the trilby had vanished. One of Dorl’s men? Or is he from the Bureau? Either theory seemed just as likely and just as far-fetched as the other.

  He had to run through Hlavni nadrazi station to make the train. In his wake, he could hear a parallel set of footsteps keeping pace with his own. The whistle blew, the train started up. The Art Nouveau designs coloring the booking hall blurred.

  “Leave me alone!” he screamed to no effect.

  The train squealed as it started moving, the wheels catching and the iron colored cars lurching forward. A woman appeared at the door of the car straight ahead. She was dressed in an ankle length red skirt topped with a blouse of pure white; innocent lamb above, sultry vixen below.

  For a moment their eyes met and he was struck with an image he could not translate, as though the memory was written in Sanskrit. But the woman in the red skirt held out a hand as he approached; thirty paces, twenty, ten. She smiled. She actually smiled as she looked on, nonplussed by the sight of an American men bedecked in dust-colored clothing. Doesn’t she see the agent behind me? Or maybe she is one too! She reached out, grasped his hand, and pulled Virgil up into the sleeper. The train pulled out of the station and they watched the man under the trilby diminish into a white dot. The lady helped him to her booth where she had been traveling alone.

  “Dekuli, pani—” he began.

  “Miss Auberon,” the lady in the red skirt said in thick Czech. She smiled across the sleeper car at him.

  It was Virgil’s favorite type of smile; the kind where the woman grins with her entire face, lighting up the world with innocence. “Proc jste me zachranil?”

  “Proto,” Miss Auberon answered. “Ze je treba ulozit.”

  “Because I needed to be saved,” Virgil repeated her answer to himself. He nodded and removed his police issued transistor so they could listen to the Yankees/Dodgers game. He would not burden her with his Dorl obsession. Not this woman.

  Chapter 26

  As the chopper lifted off, Lexi slid back into the cab and spied the time: 10:00. He would be expecting her soon. How could she go back? How pretend she didn’t know about his plan? But really, there was no choice to be made—if Lewis wasn’t convinced then the entire Bureau would be on to her, chasing her across the country.

  Still, some of what Vortex had told her hadn’t rung true.

  Lexi punched her right thigh. “You’re just being paranoid, girl.” She started the Dakota. The Fourth Movement calmed her nerves as she drove back to the internet café.

  Lewis was standing outside, arms crossed, trilby tipped as though ready to dive off his head and commit suicide. She offered a convincing smile as he got in. In silence they left Leesburg behind to continue its meager existence without them.

  “So what did you find in the database? Any patterns, anything new?”

  He sat in sullen quietude, fueling her fear. Does he know about Vortex?

  Lewis’s labored breathing continued. He’s building up to something; a revelation, a punishment, maybe, something bad, Lexi thought.

  “I found shit!” each word louder than the previous one, making Lexi flinch. “Someone hacked into the Tower files, even the Presidents Official Files, and deleted them all. I tell you one thing, you’re lucky Linnux is dead or he’d be the prime suspect for this. Don’t they—” He bit his tongue and stared out the window.

  She hadn’t realized Vortex needed to steal the files to copy them. Maybe he didn’t need to. “They’re going to redouble their efforts against us now, aren’t they?”

  His silence spoke volumes.

  “Just get back onto the I-80 west,” he boomed a minute later before retreated beneath his trilby. She was certain she understood the gesture better than he did: he was overwhelmed, retreating metaphorically to the womb. There is no safety like the wound, no place more cut off from society and the problems which plague humanity.

  The After is not always better than the Before.

  Lexi considered explaining his actions, maybe steal his metaphorical safety net. The idea brought a smile. But she too assumed a silent trance-like state, and the highway blurred.

  Three-hundred miles passed in this blackout of words, the sky hanging low in fat swathes of dun and black bones. Indiana morphed into veteris vestigia better left forgotten just as Iowa appeared. Stupid boring Iowa, with its endless chestnut cornfields.

  When they stopped at a station to fill up and switch positions Lewis said nothing. Another hundred cornfield miles passed, clouds gave birth to rain, light to darkness. Lewis pulled the Dakota into the lot of the Anita Grand Motel three miles south of I-80, dropped two Benjamin’s on the dashboard and sauntered inside to the counter without a word.

  Lexi went in ten minutes later, paid, then careened back through the puddle-strewn lot to retrieve Satan from the truck. Another bland motel room in another bland town. The days were blurring together. Still, the weariness of the road washed away under the impact of a steaming hot shower, its heat a thousand pin-prick shiatsu massage. Afterwards she splayed nude across the bed, sleep taking her in fits and starts, clearing aside a web of bad memories, looming fears.

  She awoke hours later, the rain a strangely comforting serenade against the window. A quick rummage through her travel bag led to the discovery of a long white tee—Simon’s. Grabbing it during her flight from Vernon had been an accident. Hadn’t it?

  No matter, Lexi threw it on without bothering with panties or a bra. She tried to remember how many days she had been on the run. Tried, and failed. She understood her mind had placed a psychic filter over her past, a merciful block to prevent the full dose of recollection: death, mayhem, murder.

  Right.

  That drug in your system, the same drug that causes Lewis to conk out, that probably doesn’t help with your crappy memory.

  She booted up Leslie’s computer, listening to the hypnotic rain as she waited. After opening Vortex’s’ drive she ran a search parameter for Tower Tech and Science, found something promising, clicked on the icon. The sudden sound of squealing hinges broke the rhythm of the rain. Lexi stiffened and scanned the hotel room.

  Satan sauntered out of the bathroom. Lexi breathed, swiped him up and squeezed him against her chest. “Jeez Satan. Naughty kitty-boy, you scared me half to death.”

  The web page detailed the Tower’s technological advancements chronologically, commencing with Biomechanical Limbs in 2006 from a facility in Buffalo. Schematics for integrating mechanical parts with human muscle and nerves highlighted the site. Lexi understood about one word in four but some of the computer animated drawings resembled Lewis’s hand, with some even more elegant for the smooth transition from metal to muscle.

  There was even a page suggesting the possibility of combining computer processors with a human brain for direct-to-brain data downloading.

  At the bottom of the site she noticed a file set as an attachment and clicked on it. The date stamp was listed as just three weeks ago. She leaned forward and gawked at the picture of the device she and Lewis had seen at the box factory. It had a name: Ethnologic Transverse Conveyance Apparatus. This elicited images of a fly and a man, something she had seen as a child and, shaken, she clicked back to the main page.

  The creepy squeaky hinges sound retur
ned. Lexi jumped up from the desk chair. It was coming from the bathroom. Satan, back arched, slunk over to investigate.

  Lexi in turn picked up the Stanley razor knife she had bought during their last stop and extended the fresh blade. The carpeted floor muffled her footsteps as she made for the bathroom, knife raised. She flicked on the bathroom halogen and swiped the air with the knife; a cold swell of embarrassment for jumping at shadows.

  Satan leaped up onto the bed, apparently bored now. “Rats in the walls, kitty-boy. Lovecraft would have been at home here—”

  A large hand grabbed her arm. Lexi’s heart skipped a few beats. Even though the grip was gentle Lexi kicked and flew backwards onto the bed. A little scream escaped. The hand released her. The panting sounds of labored breathing came from over by the light. Sixty watts of incandescent brilliance whisked on. There in the corner stood Simon, his face haggard and grim.

  “Lexi,” he took one step out of the shadows, hands raised. “Please don’t scream. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The dungeon screamed for her to run, summoning manufactured visions of Simon killing Linnux. But the physical feminine part of her yearned to give Simon a chance to explain. “Why are you here? Did you bring the Bureau with you?” The knife was still in her hand, blade ready.

  Simon moved slow and steady, sitting on the bed only after twenty calculated moves. “I am alone. I made a deal with the Bureau. Lexi, you don’t have to run anymore. Just give me the flash drive and the computer and this will all be over. You can come home.”

  She watched and listened, noting the fluid manner in which he spoke. His mouth did not twitch and he blinked no more than usual. There were no signs of deception. She dropped the knife, feeling the pull to self-injure but wanting him just as much for once. Letting him, Lexi watched as Simon crawled on the bed, moving like a prowling lion, his body covering hers, his face inches away. She inhaled his scent, two day old sweat under a mist of Hush cologne; memories of erotic nights dispelled the screams from the dungeon and uncoiled a lust long held at bay.

  Simon leaned in, brushed his lips against hers, soft, loving. She wanted this. God, how long had it been? How could she not have realized what she was missing, or ever assume that this man could be responsible for the death of Linnux? Absurd.

  She brought her face up to meet his, arching her back and reaching for his belt. His clothes melted off while he slid powerful hands under her shirt and raised it up over her head. As though of its own accord, Lexi’s left hand wandered away from Simon’s back and switched off the light. It then moseyed down to Simon, found him ready, eager, and led him in, filling the void. The burning pleasure grew as he thrust, slow and gentle. Every movement calculated to prolong and heighten. How does he know exactly what I need?

  The dungeon that so often urged her to cut now snarled and clawed, blaring a warning that something was wrong. He knows exactly how to manipulate you. It makes him the perfect infiltrator!

  Even as he penetrated her flesh and her defenses, the fire roaring and mounting to an explosion, the dungeon demanded to be heard and obeyed. Throw him off!

  But they were close now, moments from ecstasy, with each gentle but frenzied motion bringing them closer, their bodies in perfect sync. ‘Shut up’ she told the dungeon.

  He killed Linnux and now you’re letting him fuck you!

  The dungeon was totally ruining the moment. Lexi gritted her teeth and, as though compelled, whispered into Simon’s ear “Did you kill Linnux?”

  He stopped cold. The joy that might have been did not come. He withdrew, stared down at her. Feeling exposed of a sudden, Lexi went rigid and fear crept back in, made itself at home.

  “I can’t believe you asked me that,” Simon said, drawing on his pants.

  Did you hear that? His voice raised two octaves. But that was only logical, she pleaded. I accused him of murder—of course his voice would rise.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that someone at the University said he saw a man in a welder’s jacket fleeing the scene.”

  He turned back and sighed. And there it was; the contrived look, the purposeful gaze. A chill shook her slender frame as Lexi covered her breasts with one arm and used the other to reach for the knife. Simon lunged across the bed, grabbing her leg when she tried to turn and flee. There was no scream. She was tired of being afraid, tired of running.

  Turning, knife gripped firmly, the world slowed.

  They were both perhaps equally surprised when the knife slid across his throat. She knew it was only the unexpected move which gave her the advantage and allowed the blade to separate thin membranous flesh.

  Blood did not spurt out like in the movies, but it dribbled, thick like syrup through his fingers; mere drops at first, then enough to stain his entire hand a terrifying crimson. Almost black under the harsh halogens. His eyes displayed shock, panic, but his other hand reached down for the gun. Lexi lunged and sliced with weeks of pent up fear and frustration bursting out in pure unchecked rage. Her left hand was soon painted red with Simon’s life source. Still, she could not stop.

  The dungeon slobbered for more while she tried to put an end to the madness; the hand and blade a single unit, her arm, disconnected from synapses, was now guided only by rage.

  She couldn’t hear over the screaming, over the sound of madness creeping into the sane world one ruddy drop at a time.

  Her hand ached for grasping the razor knife with a white-knuckle grip, arm tired for the weaving pattern of continued bloodshed. The sinful metal tool fell to the floor, dull and spent as Lexi was spent. With enough passes even human flesh will dull the edge of a razor blade. Lexi had long known this terrible fact.

  She rocked back and forth, naked but for the blood sheathing her body like a vermillion condom. The dungeon returned, not yet sated. Insane laughter escaped from her throat and lips, because now the dungeon wanted her blood as punishment. She was too tired to even feign resistance. The bloody tool returned to her hand, the fit perfect, the heft profound.

  Displaying a juxtaposition of patience and madness, Lexi removed the blade and switched it around. Good, now take it to your own flesh.

  It met the soft tissue beneath her left breast and slid across in an arc that traced the circumference of her bosom. She was accustomed to quick slashes that were barely felt. This was slow, tedious, painful. The blade returned to the cloven flesh, digging deeper to subcutaneous tissue. She didn’t feel the second swipe, but the blood was gushing now.

  Switched hands.

  “One more time I assure you I am certain this will definitely do it.” The blade dug three parallel grooves into her right thigh. Somewhere in the dark world Natalie Merchant was crooning My Skin.

  Tears drooled down Lexi’s blood-stained face.

  Finally.

  The naked bleeding woman lay down on the wet crimson bed to let the high of disbelief and the loss of blood take her into nightmares neither better nor worse than her reality.

  Chapter 27

  The pitter patter of raindrops stretched from reality to dreamscape. Lexi awoke caked in blood. Her face especially felt the resistance of congealed blood long outside its appropriate container. In the bathroom she splashed water on it with cupped hands and hydrated the desert of her mouth.

  She moved back into the room. Dark outside still. When did I last see the light of the sun? Lexi flicked the lamp on but before looking up she fingered the black segment beneath her breast, the thick blood stitches, then looked at the waking nightmare of the room. It reminded her of a picture she had once seen of the Ripper’s last victim. Waves of panic splashed over her. Lexi ran into the bathroom.

  Barely made it to the toilet before spewing her last meal. Whatever that had been.

  And then, mercifully, her emotions evaporated—one of the benefits of schizoid personality disorder—and she calmed. Even the shakes subsided.

  Satan permitted himself to be picked up, despite the indecency of it. She stroked his head, enjoying the luxuriant fur aga
inst the swell of her breast. Satan’s face was flecked with blood.

  The shower washed away the evidence but not the memory of last night. The cuts on her leg reopened as she scrubbed, the deeper one under her breast burning and bleeding as the hot liquid seeped inside. Eventually the towel sopped up the leaking fluid and plugged the holes.

  The shakes returned.

  Luckily the pack had been closed during the bloodbath and there were clean jeans and a brown blouse to conceal the proof of her episodic madness.

  She packed everything including Satan. Careful to avoid the congealed puddles, Lexi left the room. Now was her chance to escape. It was only 4:30 A.M. “Put it all behind you, Alexis.” But Dorl was still out there somewhere, scheming. She couldn’t breach his facility in Arfion without Lewis.

  Confess and maybe he will beat you.

  It would be just. Lexi walked across the lot through frozen Iowa air to his room.

  “You need to see something.” She spoke in undertones so low that Lewis had to lean forward to hear. But her eyes said what her voice failed to convey.

  They walked together as Lexi realized that this was the ultimate test for Lewis: how deep would he go undercover? Could he pretend that Simon was not on his side? He entered and stopped as his eyes and mind adjusted to the sight of the dead man lying in the puddle of blood, lacerations lacing his torso, blood splatters painting the walls.

  “He killed Linnux. I—” Lexi began.

  “Go to the truck and wait for me.” A cold-cold tone. Lewis dropped his pack as she left. He emerged ten minutes later, jogging for the truck. Inside the cab, he said, “Go!”

  They rolled out of the lot just as the sun cracked the gray-black horizon. “How did you get rid of . . . you know?”

  The horizon exploded behind them. Lexi’s hand slipped off the wheel for a tick. Lewis took it as she glanced in the rear view mirror where white, orange and yellow streams of fire were busy consuming the motel. Smoke clouds shut out the half-risen sun until they passed beyond the gloom and reentered the I-80.