by Gregory Colt
I wasn’t hurt. Not physically that I could tell. But, I’d been taken, hadn’t I? My head felt full of cotton balls and I couldn’t focus. I had gone out to get coffee and was attacked on the sidewalk. Why couldn’t I remember? How much time had gone by? Was I just now waking up? Had I woken before, but couldn’t remember?
I tried sitting up again. It didn’t work. I twisted to the side and slid an elbow under me to lean on, then jerked forward to bring my other elbow under me. Ha! Yes. I could raise my head more.
I saw a tray beside me I hadn’t noticed before. On my elbows I could see it covered in various instruments, most of them used needles and syringes and knives—oh god. Oh god!
I had to get out. I stretched my neck over to bite the tray and pull it close enough to get the nearest scalpel with my teeth. Once secure I spit it out beside my left hand. I stretched until it hurt again to get my fingertips around the handle. The second I grabbed hold of it I attacked the strap pinning my left wrist, stabbing and sawing at the stitches with what little force I could exert.
All my moving around caused my gown to ride up my hips and twist well beyond decency, but it didn’t matter. I had no idea how long until someone would come in the room.
Maybe an hour passed as I sawed and prayed and sweated and panted. Pain came slow and dull in my wrist and forearms then flashed like lightning up my arm. Lightning that started a grass fire that raged through my back and neck. I kept going.
I stopped craning my neck down to look at what I was doing as the pain became unbearable. I kept sawing and prayed I would finish in time. That’s how I spent the next thirty minutes. Sawing and praying and sawing and praying and, when I stopped because my fingers couldn’t go on, the silence in the room became palpable, the dark weighing heavily on my chest. It heightened my sense of loneliness and that heightened the contrast of the fear of someone coming in while still helpless.
I kept sawing.
And praying.
And sawing.
And snap!
The hard outer leather snapped apart and I ripped my hand through the softer second layer, tearing it the rest of the way free.
Yes, yes, yes! I threw myself forward almost all the way and leaned on my other elbow. My entire left side was grateful. All I had to do was open the buckles on the remaining three and I would—
A light came on from beyond the door at one end of the room and footsteps were coming down the stairs.
No. No, no, no, no this could not be happening. I bit my lip and dove at the other restraint. I couldn’t get the buckle loose. I swallowed a scream when I bent a fingernail back trying to loosen the strap. I looked as a man’s shadow filled the frosted window on the door then threw myself back down, palmed the scalpel, and wriggled my left hand into the leather strap, trying to turn the break in it down as low as I could to conceal it.
I closed my eyes and lay still and I hated it. I wanted to know. I wanted to see who had done this to me. I wanted to slam that scalpel into him! But I couldn’t get out of the remaining restraints. I needed more time. I needed him to leave as soon as possible. It was the only way.
I listened to his slow footsteps approach the foot of my bed.
“My darling,” he said, tracing his fingers along the side of my left foot. Terror and disgust raced neck in neck as to which would overwhelm me first as I felt the tips of his fingers dance over my ankle. They slid along my lower leg as he walked beside the bed. Every touch violated my sanity. He stood over me, tracing circles on the inside of my knee. Oh god, why didn’t I fix that forsaken gown! I broke out in a sweat trying not to tremble. Do not move!
“If only you were ready in time to be at my side tonight,” he said. “I wish you could understand, could appreciate,” he said, running his fingertips deeper up my inner thigh. “But no matter. You’ll understand what an important role you play when I’m through with you. And you will never have to remember,” as he spoke a shadow fell over my face and I could feel his breath on me. He was leaning over me. I could feel him so close I screamed inside, trying to hold still, but his breath, his breath smelled like…like mint.
My left hand burst free into a single hard thrust as I grunted and screamed all at the same time. The scalpel caught him deep in the back of his arm. He jerked and screamed as I struck out again, catching him in the wrist as he pulled away. He fell into the cart beside the table, sending it crashing to the floor. The sound was clattering and deafening after so much silence. I was out of time.
I threw myself forward and stabbed the scalpel into the buckle over my right wrist. I dropped the blade and tore at the straps and—a large, sharp pain exploded into the side of my face as I fell to the bed with the taste of warm blood in my mouth, and my lips on fire.
He grabbed my free hand, yanking it above me, then strapped it in to one of the restraints at the head of the bed. My body contorted into an awkward position that left me even more exposed than before.
I noticed the back of his right hand was bloody from where he’d struck me.
My eyes burned with tears of pain, fear, and hatred. I’d vowed once to never be helpless or beaten ever again and here I was both. I was…I would have…
I whimpered trying to speak as he cleaned and bandaged the wounds on his arm.
“Well, if you’re in a talking mood,” he said, finishing and turning to lean back over me. He grabbed the blade from where I’d dropped it. “I have somewhere I have to be soon. Might be your friend Adrian will be there, though I’ve heard Jack got a hold of him,” he said, grinning and running the blade along my legs like he had his fingers. “Not that it matters in either case. Whoever survives tonight will answer to me and me alone. Including you. You’re not like the others. I didn’t want to take you as I have the others, but you will never be able to understand, to comprehend, what I have to show you until you let go. Every one I’ve helped, everyone I’ve saved, they know their proper place now. They all resisted in the beginning, but now it isn’t so bad. You might even enjoy it. I know I do.”
I shivered all over. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop shaking.
“You,” I stammered. “You killed them. All those missing girls.”
“Kill?” he said in disgust. “Is that what you think this is about? Don’t be a fool. I gave them a purpose. A way to serve something other than perpetuating their lifestyle, their existence, of filth and decay. I have gotten rid of every drug dealer for twenty square miles. I got the beggar trash off the streets. I have kept Vitale and Jack’s scum out of the neighborhood. Me. And after tonight, no one will have to worry about either one of them ever again. Thanks to me.”
It might have sounded like misguided passion twisted into validation, and it was, but his eyes were wild. He was responsible for the missing girls. He had essentially murdered the drug dealers who disappeared. He was the reason no one went out at night. He made the monsters.
“The Gray Night,” it hurt to talk. “You’re poisoning all those people.”
“Fascinating substance. You don’t know the trouble it was getting it to work properly, and even then only a fraction of the time,” he shook his head. “But the rest was put to good use.”
“You’re distributing it. Taking territory by default because it’s so addictive,” I said, trying to snap my mind out its fog of fear, and think.
“The territory, the competition over the drug, was an interesting side effect, nothing more. The real genius was getting the filth to buy their own poison,” he laughed. “To take it themselves. Oh, but it is poetic justice at its finest. Don’t you see? Their very nature is destroying them. Maybe in weeks, perhaps months, every addict in the city will be gone. And they will have done it to themselves.”
“And paid you for the privilege,” I said.
“I knew you were quick,” he turned around and assembled a syringe. He screwed the needle in and drew a smoky liquid in from a small bottle he had in his pocket.
He was going to inject me. He was going to addic
t me to Gray Night. Like one of his monsters.
“You attacked me. Us. At the office building the night before last,” I said.
Without subtlety or preamble, he turned back around and stabbed the needle deep into my left arm. I watched the horrible, metallic liquid disappear into me.
“No. That was Dr. Mathews. In fact I regret it now,” he said, removing the needle and dabbing away at the bleeding.
My head felt heavy, fuzzy. I wanted to say something smug like, “I bet you do, asshole,” but the thought never made it to my lips.
“I dare say, Matthews is furious. Forty-seven facial stitches. Still, Vitale’s soldiers proved effective in the field again. This will be a night to remember, my darling. Too bad you won’t.” I faded into lazy darkness and the last thing I remembered was the wet taste of mint.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I made it back to Jack’s by dusk and it bothered me. I had company, I guess you could say, on the lone car ride home. It came in waves sometimes, except usually waited until the worst possible moment to hit. Strange that it would affect me while I was calm. In fact, it was no trouble at all to handle and now here I was arriving on time. Seemed like the plan was going smooth. I’m not used to that at all. It worried me.
Jack’s man out front waved me through the gate beside the building and I parked behind the small loading area where everyone waited.
“Mr. Knight. I trust everything is in order?” Jack asked as I got out.
“We’re good. Your boys ready?” I asked.
“Indeed. And the information on Mr. Chekhov was accurate?” he asked.
We’d decided someone should go in alone, under their own invitation, and Djimon was the only one nobody would recognize. Since the invites were personalized, and there wasn’t time to make a forgery, we needed someone else’s that wouldn’t be as well known. Jack provided the someone else. A one Leonid Chekhov, the new head of Ukrainian operations in the Big Apple, and the only black man invited that no one would recognize.
Djimon and I took care of him on the way back.
I never asked how Diamond Jack knew where Chekhov was going to be. Not that it wasn’t important, it was just way down on the list this evening.
“Leonid won’t be attending this evening,” I said.
Jack smiled. “Or any other evening?”
“Mr. Chekhov should wake right before his train reaches Boston.”
Everyone laughed. I didn’t know what the blowback for crossing the Ukrainians was going to be, but it wouldn’t be good. You had to be hardcore to rise to the top of an organization like that. And doing it as a black man in Ukraine meant going above and beyond. Yeah, it was going to be bad. It was also the best option with the time we had. I’d have to deal with them later.
“I half expected a Star Trek reference,” Jack said.
“Too easy.”
Everyone laughed again, but it died quick. Things were going to get messy if I was right about Vitale making his move tonight. Messy on a big scale and everyone here knew it. Djimon was in place and Jack was well prepared on his end. Joe Vitale wouldn’t make a scene in front of his high profile guests. At least not until after their business was conducted. Jack agreed. The trap wouldn’t spring until the night was over. Probably even planned it as a departing ceremony.
“Guess there’s nothing left but to do the thing,” Jack said.
“Djimon is on his way there now. I’ll follow you,” I said, sitting back down in the driver’s seat and shutting the door.
I watched our plan mobilize and gripped the steering wheel with both hands, grinding it back and forth. The purple sky faded black and fog formed inside the windows as a chill came with it. I’d like to say I’d never lost anyone before and I wasn’t going to start now, but it was all BS. None of it mattered. I’d kill every last one of them myself to save Claire.
Claire would tell me the artifacts from the museum were there, as well as a lead on George and Henry’s killers. And it might, just might, be possible to get a lead on those missing girls if we could find the people involved in human trafficking. That it was a nexus for tons of shit going down in my city and we’d played catch up long enough.
But I had it covered. That’s where Djimon came in. My job was to get her out of there.
I followed Jack’s lead and every so many miles one of his cars in our caravan would head off right or left. Jack took us through the Holland Tunnel into New Jersey and south-southwest down Interstate 78 to Port Newark.
We pulled into the oldest, most run-down gatehouse entrance we’d passed so far. Security made its presence known. In a few places rifle barrels stuck farther out of their broken windows than they should have, but when the lead car rolled down its window, there was no hesitation in letting us through. Which made perfect sense. I mean a trap can’t work unless the prey shows up. Which is why I tried to avoid them.
Yeah, that was good advice. Wise even. And one great and glorious day I was going to listen to it.
We took a winding path through a maze of large ship containers stacked higher and higher the closer to the water we got. We passed several huge steel warehouses of various shapes, sizes, and ages. Even an industrial moving van rental place fenced in around one of them. The clean white paint of the vehicles clashed with the muted containers, asphalt, and rust everywhere else.
On the other side was Newark Bay. Or I assumed anyway. It was dark and all I could see was the massive steel hull of a container ship docked, but I could smell the oil and exhaust from the heavy machines at the dockyard mingled with the less than fresh seawater. Ah, New Jersey.
Dozens and dozens of vehicles were parked outside, all way nicer than mine. Way nicer in the way an extra zero looked on a paycheck. But my car had character.
I parked on the other side of Jack. Well, maybe a couple of car lengths on the other side. I didn’t want my baby right next to it if Vitale got frisky with Jack’s ride. Though he would know we came together. Okay, it was a silly precaution. Sue me.
I got out and noticed the car Djimon had chosen for the evening. He was already here. Good.
“You guys know the rules. Only us three go in. The rest of you know what to do. Eyes sharp, lads,” said Jack.
The others relaxed around the cars, or pretended to, and Jack motioned for me to follow him and Argento to the gangplank where a group of men stood dressed alike under bright industrial lighting.
“Invitation, sir,” one of them asked as we approached.
Jack handed him his invite and the guy glanced at it before waving us through.
“Tight security,” I said, not hiding the sarcasm.
“Smart security. They know what customers are coming aboard and were either ordered to play nice or, more likely, are frightened of standing out in a negative way towards anyone arriving,” Jack whispered.
“Or they recognized you and let you in with minimal fuss, not even asking about who you have with you, because in order for you to fall into the trap you have to reach it first.”
“That too.”
We stepped off the gangplank onto the top deck, which was already cleared for the evening’s event taking place below. A coppery-skinned young woman, dressed in rose quartz, ascended one of the stairs from below and greeted us.
“Good evening gentlemen,” she said smiling. “Mr. Vitale welcomes you. Please allow me to escort you to the main hold for tonight’s Auction,” she said, turning and descending the stairs she’d just come up.
Argento went first and then Jack. I took rear guard. The rose quartz woman took us two or three levels down before the stairs ended in a small hallway with a single closed door at the end.
“Please do not hesitate to signal anyone in gray should you require anything. They are willing and able to provide whatever you desire,” she said, smiling again before heading back upstairs.
“Anything I desire?” I asked Jack.
“Quite,” he nodded. “I hope you don’t blush easily, Mr. Knight.”
/> Argento opened the door out into the main floor of the cargo deck and we followed him in.
It opened into a large area of grated metal flooring. The whole area, a good six or seven thousand square feet in this one compartment alone, was decorated like a brand new, upscale studio apartment. Dim track lighting lined the steel beams above us, illuminating dozens and dozens of glass tables and bars and mirrors with strategically placed old movie posters. I spotted Bogey no less than three times. Everything else was covered in sheer curtains of differing shades of gray.
Vitale did love his gray and there was no doubt about who was working the event. Women in ash, battleship, xanadu, slate, charcoal, cool, davy’s, and silver flitted around, offering drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Some of the women offered more than that, slipping out of their gray restraints and leading their guests behind the curtains, which didn’t leave much to the imagination.
One of the women was showing off her box of cigars for a group of men. I recognized one of them, Ukrainian or not.
What the hell. Blend in, right? Mingle. I left Jack and Argento, who were already engaged in small talk to the side, and went to Djimon.
“Mr. Chekhov, isn’t it?” I asked Djimon, who was lighting one of the cigars.
“That’s me,” he said, wise enough to not even attempt the accent. We shook hands.
“And who is that I saw you arrive with?” he asked.
“Diamond Jack, that is,” said a stocky, rugged man in a bastardized British accent. “Curious, he ain’t ever come to the Auction since Vitale took over.”
“That’s right. I’m here with Jack,” I said.
“In what capacity, precisely?” asked a shorter man next to the pseudo-brit. He had dark chopped hair and was wearing a black silk shirt with a red stitched, flaming dragon up one side. I thought he looked Korean, but it was hard to tell with his sunglasses on.
