Infernal: Bite The Bullet

by Black, Paula

  His gaze fell.

  “No, I didn’t think so.” Rubbing my thighs to dry the clammy feeling from my palms, I swallowed and straightened my spine. I’d been willing to go it alone before I’d know Konstantyn had been involved, but things were different now. I didn’t have the skills to catch my brother’s killers alone, and I wasn’t letting Konstantyn, my one good chance at succeeding, get away from me. “What if we were to find your sister first, before Dante comes for you? There must be a way to expose what these people are doing. You have all that video evidence. The entire planet isn’t corrupt.”

  He dragged a hand down his face with a frustrated groan. “You think I wouldn’t have exposed them before now, if I could? It’s nothing but circumstantial evidence. Only the victims are identifiable. Never the perpetrators, never the location. Dante is meticulous. He will only be found on his terms.”

  “He’s not working alone though.” I pointed out, tapping my fingers on my thigh. “Raider must know something, or that creepy Friar guy at the club?”

  Konstantyn leant back, his large body powerful and intimidating, even when he was semi-relaxed. “Raider and the Friar will never talk. They are too invested, plus they know how Dante will reward them if they loosen their lips.”

  “Couldn’t we follow them or something?” Like we were Scooby and the gang, but as ridiculous as it sounded, I didn’t know how else you could track a person. “Maybe we could find out where he takes the victims, where the videos are made?”

  He shook his head and wetted his lips, and I could see the thoughts turning over in his head, even if he was dismissing every course of action I proposed. “Now they know I’m here, they’ll be more vigilant than ever to cover their tracks.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek and for a few moments, the sound of our breathing was the only interruption to our thoughts.

  “What about Gracie?” I blurted.

  “Gracie? The dancer?” His brow furrowed and the confusion was a good look on him. “What about her?”

  “She knows something. She denied it, but she recognised the photograph of my brother. She gave me the card for Infernal.” Loose links, perhaps, but from that flash of recognition in her eyes, I knew she had to know something. Anything.

  “Do you know where she lives? Where to find her?”

  “No,” I said, deflated.

  “Not a problem,” he said. “You have my laptop?”

  I nodded and he grinned.

  “Then I can find her.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  While Konstantyn sat, elbows braced on his knees waiting for the laptop to boot-up, the dryer buzzed.

  “That’ll be your pants.” I smiled and said, “I’ll get them.”

  “Let me,” he replied, and he was striding out to my laundry area before I had a chance to stir from the chair.

  I may have spied on him as he shucked the towel down his legs and got to grips with the door of my washer-dryer. God, but you had to love a man who knew his way around the laundry, especially a half-naked one with an ass hard enough to crack walnuts on. When he held up his tattered shirt, the thing looked like a prop from a slasher movie. With a growl of annoyance, he balled it up and strode shirtless back to the couch.

  True to his word, after only ten minutes clacking away on the keyboard, Konstantyn came up with an address for Gracie, along with numerous photographs, a national insurance number and God knew what other personal details. I made a mental note to be more secure about what I put online in future. No wonder he’d found my apartment so readily. He really hadn’t lied when he said hacking was just one of his many skills.

  He snapped the laptop closed, dusted down his thighs and stood. “I go alone,” he said, fisting the ripped shirt and pulling it over his head.

  “No way. I’m coming with you.” I scrambled to my feet and attempted to square up to him. Macho man wasn’t getting his way on this one. “We’re doing this for Daniel as much as for your sister.”

  “No,” he snapped, shutting me down. He tried to turn away, but I dogged him.

  “I’ve already seen the address. I’ll make my way there, with or without you.” No way I was letting him out that door alone. He’d walk away with my last shred of hope and I’d never see him again.

  “Do I have to tie you to the bed?”

  He was joking, wasn’t he?

  “Look,” I said, “Gracie and I have gotten pretty close in the auditions. She gave me that card. I really think I can persuade her to talk, without having to resort to violence. Besides, I’ll be safer with you. Don’t leave me alone here. Please.” I was playing the distressed damsel card, and he knew it.

  He narrowed his eyes on me, but I could feel his resistance weakening.

  “You’ll do exactly as I tell you,” he said.

  “I will, I promise. Now let me find you something else to wear. If Gracie sees you in that blood-stained mess of a shirt, she’s liable to clam right up.”

  Much as I hated to see him cover up that magnificent physique, I hunted in my closet and found him a sweatshirt that should just about fit.

  He looked it over suspiciously, as though questioning if it belonged to a boyfriend.

  “It’s one of Daniel’s,” I explained.

  Cue the awkward silence.

  Weirdly, though, I found it comforting, knowing Konstantyn wore my hopes next to his skin. I prayed it would help him remember, when the decisions got really rough, as I knew they must.

  On the way out the door, Konstantyn tucked the handgun into the waistband of his combats and we made a cautious run for the Underground.

  The address was a short walk from Camden Town tube station. It was a non-descript Victorian terrace with a miniscule front garden. Someone had tried to whitewash the sloppy pebbledash render with a coat of paint, but that was where the maintenance ended. Weeds crawled up through the cracks in the pavers, the garbage was overflowing and the windows were smeared with city grime and framed by shabby, nicotine-stained curtains. Funny, I’d expected the impeccably turned-out Gracie to live somewhere very different. That was the thing with appearances, though. You could judge someone by them, but that didn’t mean you knew them.

  A row of doorbells indicated the house was divided into four separate flats. Only one didn’t have a name: flat C, and that was the one Konstantyn pressed.

  After a few moments, Gracie’s unmistakable voice sounded a tinny “Come on up, sugar,” through the intercom and the door lock buzzed open. I cast Konstantyn a sidelong glance. She was hardly expecting us to call. He merely shrugged and pushed the door wide. I followed him to the top of the communal stairs and stood aside as he rapped on the door marked ‘C’.

  There was noise, movement on the other side as the latch was undone.

  Then it went deathly quiet.

  I guessed Gracie was eyeing us through the peephole, and we weren’t who she’d been expecting.

  Konstantyn’s patience lasted another two knocks before he rammed the flimsy door with his shoulder, splintering the lock, and knocking Gracie back from where she’d been silently spying on us.

  She yelped in surprise as the momentum sent her sprawling across the floor.

  Handling the gun with the easy grace of a true pro, Konstantyn trained the weapon on her face.

  So much for the friendly enquiry approach.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked, anxiously eyeing first Konstantyn, and then me, with a look of naked terror. Trembling hands rearranged her short, silk robe over her thighs. Her blonde hair extensions were pushed back off her face revealing the dark wiry roots beneath, and I got the impression she’d been doing her makeup when we called. I scanned the room briefly, and spotted a collection of drugs paraphernalia on a side-table: syringes, a spoon, baggies of powder and tablets.

  Wow. I looked again at Gracie, and this time saw through the veil of her appearance. I noticed the telltale dark tracks on the insides of her arms, and all I could think of was seeing those same marks on Da
niel’s arms in the morgue.

  Anger lit like a flare behind my breastbone.

  “You gave me that card for the club, Infernal,” I said. “You lied about not knowing Daniel Raines. You were on tour with him last year. You know something about my brother’s murder. Tell me.”

  “I don’t know nothing. I swear,” she replied. Her attempt at a smile came off as a sneer.

  “You lie,” Konstantyn growled and pushed the muzzle of the gun beneath her jaw. “Talk!” he demanded, curling his free hand into a fist.

  Gracie whimpered, crab-scuttling herself back against the wall. She curled herself up defensively, like an abused dog that knew what was coming next. “Don’t hurt me,” she pleaded.

  Konstantyn looked at me, almost apologetic.

  “What?”

  “I don’t hit women,” he said stonily.

  No, he wouldn’t, I thought, not after what he’d told me about his father.

  Gracie peeked out from behind her hands, like a rabbit checking to see if the wolf was really gone.

  This wasn’t going to work, I thought. I could see her confession slipping away through her spread fingers and hopeful eyes.

  “Here, allow me,” I said. I grabbed her roughly by the lapels of her robe and cocked back my fist. I hadn’t punched anyone since that time in the playground when I’d taken on a little bitch for calling Daniel a lard-ass, but goddammit, I was mad, frustrated and desperate enough to resort to violence if that’s what it took.

  “Please,” she cried, cowering under me, “I swear to you, I would never have hurt him. I’m just a go-between, a supplier. That’s all.”

  “Tell me everything,” I hissed.

  “He’ll kill me,” she said shakily.

  “Who?”

  “Dante.”

  “You work for him?”

  She nodded grimly and pulled aside the shoulder of her robe to reveal a peace symbol. “I don’t have a choice,” she said.

  “Everybody has a choice,” I said, gritting my teeth.

  “You don’t understand,” Gracie said softly, and there were tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Help me understand then.”

  She exhaled shakily. “He’ll have me killed if I talk.”

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t,” Konstantyn growled.

  “What happened to not hitting women?” she countered.

  “I said I wouldn’t beat a woman with my fists. I am not averse to putting a bullet in your head if you refuse to cooperate.”

  “Please Gracie,” I said, hoping to appeal to her conscience, “the lives of innocent people are at stake here.”

  Her brows shot up. “Now you’re the good cop? Make up your minds, people. I’m getting whiplash.” Gracie exhaled shakily. “Take that thing outta my face and I’ll tell you what I know.”

  Konstantyn backed off and Gracie plucked at the hem of her robe as she spoke.

  “Raider recruited me, two years ago. He likes them athletic, and I fit the bill. He promised to hook me up with a really good job in this private dance club in Chelsea he had connections with. Only, it turned out I wasn’t to their taste.”

  I popped a questioning brow at her.

  “Because of this,” she said. She spread her thighs, splitting the robe wide to reveal a full set of male genitals.

  Wow, so my first impressions hadn’t been off the mark, Gracie was trans.

  Konstantyn cleared his throat and she closed her legs, gifting him a wry grin.

  “Surprised? Dante was too. Turns out he likes cock,” she said, “and he likes titties too. Just not both at the same time, on the same body. No accounting for taste.” She smiled sarcastically. “He beat me to a pulp for it. I needed four rounds of plastic surgery just to put my face back together. He was ready to kill me then, but Raider persuaded him I could be an asset to their sick little set-up.

  They put me to work, grooming potential recruits, supplying the drugs. Dante doesn’t like to get his hands dirty with that kind of thing. He told me if I talked, if I refused to cooperate, he was personally going to make a woman out of me, the non-surgical way, and feed me my cock until I choked on it. Then he said he’d kill my family. I’m a coward. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. If you’d seen it for yourself, you’d be afraid too. You wouldn’t be here.” She scrubbed her hair off her face and looked up at me with her huge, sad eyes. “That first day you turned up at auditions? I had you pegged as a perfect fit for him, but then you showed me that damn picture of Danny and –” Tears welled up over her lower lids and rolled down her face in black streaks. “I tried to warn you off, but you pushed,” she said. “I shoulda never given you that card. I thought maybe you could blow the whistle on him, but you can’t. Nobody can. Dante is too powerful, he’s everywhere.”

  “Tell me about Daniel?” I said, dropping down on my hunkers beside her.

  Gracie pulled a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of her robe and shakily lit up.

  “Poor, beautiful Danny boy,” she said, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke that stung my eyes. “He walked into those auditions fresher than paint and harder than a Michelangelo. I knew right off he’d be just the type they liked. And he was all about the ambition, talked non-stop about carving a better life for him and his sister. I liked him, did what I could at first to steer him away from Raider. We became friends, but he drank up that bastard’s promises like dust drinks rain. Raider gave him just enough rope: a place on the Beastrider tour, the MTV video fame.”

  “Beastrider is connected with Dante?” I asked.

  Gracie nodded. “He’s been using the band as a front to move his property between his international clubs. He likes to share his favourites around.”

  Jesus, I thought, just how deep did all of this go?

  “By the time Daniel was coming down from the high, he was fully primed. He sailed right into their trap. One day he’s dancing at Infernal, the next he’s up to his armpits in debt, and he’s Dante’s branded property.”

  I thought back on all the money Daniel had flashed, the apartment I was sure we couldn’t afford to rent, the parties. He’d been so proud of the better life he was providing for us. And all along it’d been a trap, a way to lure him to his death.

  I felt Konstantyn’s hand come to rest on my shoulder and I covered it with my own, feeling his tension. I knew he was listening as intently as I was. Whatever Daniel had gone through, his sister, Mariya, had most likely suffered the same fate.

  “Did you see him, after that?” I asked.

  “Not much, you know?” Gracie sniffled, her lower lip trembling as she took another drag of her cigarette. “He keeps them locked up, for use by him and his friends. I only saw him that one time.”

  “Where? When? Please tell me.”

  “Somewhere underground, in the city. I don’t know exactly. They put a sack over my head every time they send for me. Sometimes, their games go too far. They won’t use the hospital, because the wrong people might ask questions, so they bring me in, to quieten the screams, and give everyone a little peace.”

  “You inject the victims with drugs?” I felt sick at the thought.

  Gracie nodded, letting her head sag forward on her neck. “I’m not proud of what I do,” she said, whispering to the ground, “but at least it takes the edge off their pain.”

  “To take the edge off, not to kill them?” I’d assumed, because Daniel was dead, that all the others were too. “Are you saying he keeps them alive?”

  “Yeah,” Gracie exhaled. “Like I said, he likes to share his favourites. They have their own doctor, the Butcher. He patches them up, just enough to keep them going.”

  Jesus. There were living victims. This changed everything.

  “Were you taken to see Daniel?” I pressed.

  Another nod, and when she lifted her eyes to mine, I saw the horror of what she’d witnessed.

  My throat closed over with grief, but I couldn’t look away.

  “Oh, Lord,” she cried, “I couldn�
��t believe what they’d done to him.” The burnt-down cigarette shook between her fingers. “I couldn’t leave him there like that. I had to do something. But in the end, I think I made it worse.”

  “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  “I was trying to help him. I unchained Danny, and I carried him out of there.”

  “How?”

  “I hardly know. I was so scared of being caught. I wandered the tunnels ‘til I found a manhole, and I carried him up onto the street. I left him there, under some godforsaken bridge, and I hoped to hell somebody would find him before he died there. I had to go back down. If I didn’t, I was good as dead myself.”

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  “Have you been back since?” Konstantyn asked.

  Gracie nodded her head. “A few times, I guess.”

  “How many are down there?” I asked shakily.

  Konstantyn squeezed my shoulder.

  “I don’t know exactly. Ten, fifteen maybe. Like I said, they move them around.”

  God, there were other living victims, suffering through the hell that killed Daniel.

  “Tell me,” Konstantyn demanded, “do you remember a blonde girl, accent like mine. Same eyes?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sadly, and shook her head. “I just go where they send me.”

  Konstantyn closed his eyes and inhaled deep.

  “Tell me something,” I said quietly, and Gracie looked back up at me. “Why did you help my brother?”

  She answered me with a question. “Why is he helping you? Why are you helping him? Why does anybody risk everything for another human being?”

  Konstantyn and I exchanged a fleeting glance, before looking quickly away.

  She’s talking about love, I thought.

  Gracie had been in love with my brother. The knowledge flared in my eyes.

  “He didn’t feel that way about me,” she said quietly. “He never even knew.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN