by Rhys Ford
“Won’t be long,” Sionn promised again. “Can’t imagine what else I’ve got to be doing here.”
RAISED poor and chained to the confines of a trailer park with a swamp in his back yard, Parker grew up believing the majority of people around him were stupid. Once he got out of the trash pit he’d been born into, he’d see the world and live a sophisticated life, surrounded by intelligent and beautiful people.
Funny how no matter how far he got away from the swamp, the people he met were still as stupid—if not more so— than the ones he’d left behind.
It had taken him less than five minutes to wrangle Murphy’s number out of the woman who answered the phone at his pub. Throwing in a few authoritative statements about being a detective, then dropping one of the Morgans’ names into the conversation, turned the woman’s wariness into an enthusiastic river of information. Given assurance that Murphy wouldn’t be headed down to the pub, Parker laid his trap.
If he needed further evidence of the stupidity of the world at large, he got it when he wheeled a trash cart into the lobby and punched through the buttons to get to the top floor.
“Jesus, this is too easy.” Parker grinned, pushing the burdened cart out through the elevator’s open doors. “Let’s see what we can do up here to welcome him home.”
He’d unloaded a large bag from the high-sided cart, dropping it to the floor. It hit with a solid, wet thud and a popping sound, as something inside gave way.
“Shit, hope that wasn’t your head, Mr. Stephen Mitchell,” he bent over to whisper at the bag. Staring down at the unidentifiable lumps poking the plastic up, he shrugged. “Of course, for all I know, I’m talking to those damned boat feet of yours.”
The plastic was easier to get loose this time, but Mitchell was definitely heavier than his brother’s wife. Unlike the time Parker spent on Phillip, he’d been pressed for time with his brother, Stephen, so corners had to be cut. A hedge trimmer and pinking shears were his weapons of choice on Stephen, and the sodium carbonate bath was out of the question. Phillip’s disappearance was easily explained with a few maneuverings from the older Mitchell’s office. The man rarely showed up at his family’s business. His corner office with its view of the bay mostly hosted high-powered guests. No, Stephen’s staff had done a great job of dancing around Phillip’s absence, but Stephen Mitchell dropping off the grid was going to blow up in someone’s face.
And Parker planned to be long gone before the cops started taking down names for that particular bukake contest.
He wasn’t going to go for shock this time. No, Parker wanted something else instead.
This time, he wanted to see the pain he could cause. Up close, so he could taste it on Damien Mitchell’s skin and smell it coming off the young man’s body in redolent waves for his pleasure.
Parker dragged a chair over to the dining area and began to reassemble his former employer. A knee gave him a bit of trouble, and he had to twist it to break it until he could have it dangle properly over the seat. Once he was done shoving the thighs against the man’s trunk, Parker stepped back to examine his work.
The man’s arms were a bit slack, but there was no helping that. He’d left the house without any baling wire or duct tape. To his amazement, the chateau’s garage and gardening shed were sorely lacking in supplies, and he’d had to make do with what he already had on hand. Metal kabob skewers were a partial solution. The points were sharp enough to slide through the meat of the man’s arms to pin them to his sides, but they left the shoulders loose, and Parker could easily see a bit of space between them and the body.
“Can’t help it.” He shrugged, wiping his hands on a towel. “Okay, now for the head.”
After seeing both Mitchell brothers up close, Parker was pretty sure Phillip’s wife had jumped the fence at some point to have her eggs primed by some other guy. Neither brother looked anything like Damien Mitchell. Their thinning hair ran to a gingery brown, and both men were square blocks of meat, difficult to move after they were killed.
“Your nephew’s going to be a hell of a lot easier.” Parker plopped his boss’s head onto his neck stump. “Murphy probably won’t be, but it doesn’t matter what happens to him. He can rot here for all I care.”
Phillip’s skull grinned up at him from the bottom of the cart, and Parker removed it carefully, not wanting to jiggle off the jawbone he’d finally found amid the rest of the man’s stripped bones.
“You, sir, are a handsome looking skull.” Parker matched the man’s bony grin. “Let’s put you on the dining table so I don’t forget you.”
A dark blue duffel was all that remained in the cart, and Parker took his time removing it. At first unsure about where he wanted to set up, he paced around the house, weighing the pros and cons of each space. Some part of him was saddened by the lack of blood, its metallic taint buried beneath the gloss of lemon oil and fresh paint. In some ways, he was being given a new canvas, but he mourned the loss of his previous masterpiece.
If only he’d been present for its unveiling.
It was the one thing he’d always been missing, and with Murphy, that desire would soon be fulfilled.
“You know what would be nice? If I left Murphy alive until your son got here,” he said to Phillip’s grinning skull. “Just to take a little walk on the wild side before I let him join you. I’ve never really had an audience while I’ve worked.”
The dining room table was a thick, sturdy piece, and even though Parker was drawn to the coffee table in the middle of the living room, Murphy’s size would make carving him up difficult if he wasn’t fully secured. After eyeing the living space one final time, he reluctantly returned to where he’d left Stephen Mitchell, a rag doll of a man held together with skewers and a prayer.
Unzipping the duffel took time. Things had shifted inside during the transport down from Muir, and he struggled to undo the tang. Yanking it open, Parker yelped, nearly stabbing himself on a thick chopping blade he’d taken from the chateau’s kitchen. He sucked at the stinging cut, stared at it for a moment, then shook his fingers when nothing welled up. Reaching in carefully, he unpacked his tools, lining up the blades he’d chosen for the task.
A strange hum echoed through the ceiling, and Parker frowned, looking up. He grabbed a small box out of the duffel and strode into the living room, trying to find the source of the sound when the small whispering drone grew louder, then ended suddenly. A whoosh echoed through the space, and he froze, suddenly realizing what he was hearing.
“No. No. No. It’s too soon,” Parker muttered, flicking on a Taser he’d brought with him. “I’m not ready!”
He’d been expecting Murphy. Even primed for the man, if he were being honest, and for all his faults, Parker certainly prided himself for being truthful.
So he felt a sort of rejection when he came around the corner and found himself staring at a slender young woman dressed in jeans and a Finnegan’s pub T-shirt. Startled, her scarlet-painted lips formed an O, an obscene mimicry of the blow-up doll Parker’d had his first sexual experience with. The Taser went off, nearly instantly, and it took a second for Parker to realize he’d pulled the trigger.
Her bright blue hair fanned out into the air as she fell backward, and, much like a spider dancing on a third rail, the young woman’s limbs jerked and pounded the floor as her nerves were overloaded with electricity.
“Well shit,” Parker said, standing over the woman’s twitching body. “What the hell am I going to do with you?”
Chapter 19
Fingers on my skin
Sin in my bones
Blood in my veins
Telling me there’s no home
Finding solace above
From iron in the sky
Love’s what you make it
Never let it walk by
—Dead of Night
THE building was quiet, a slumbering stack of bricks amid Chinatown’s midday buzz. Sionn stood in front of the lobby doors, working the key into the lock, when
someone tapped his shoulder. Glancing to the right, the space was empty. Then a familiar husky laugh echoed in his left ear and his lobe stung from a quick flick of Damien’s long fingers.
“Thought you were going to wait in the Jeep.” Sionn scowled at his lover.
“After sitting in that traffic, I wanted to stretch my legs out.” Holding his hands up in mock surrender, Damien opened his fingers to show the other man a kretek he’d had hidden. “And I didn’t think you wanted your car to smell like cloves.”
“No, not really.”
“See? Stretching legs and cloving out.” Damien gave a short, sweeping dip, as if bowing to the throngs gathered to cross the nearby corner. “I even brought the phone with me so I can talk to Miki while you’re upstairs.”
“Fine, call Sinjun but—”
“Staying down here,” Damie cut him off, shadows winging across his face. “Really, Irish, I… can’t go up. I’m a chickenshit, but at least I know it. I’ll wait for you here.”
“You’re not shite, Damie boy.” Sionn gathered the man in, twining his arms around Damien’s shoulders. “Chicken or anything else. What happened up there…. I don’t want to go up. Only reason I am is because it’s for you… for your mum.”
“Think you can get my guitar?” He sniffed, turning his head away, but Sionn’d already seen the stubborn set of his mouth as Damie fought back his emotions. “It’s crap, but… it’s the one I took to Finnegan’s a lot. Kinda of reminds me of… us.”
“Ah, you’re a big softie, a rún.” The heel of Damien’s hand found a space between his ribs, and Sionn’s breath left him in a whoosh. He let the man go and rubbed at his side, staring at Damien accusingly. “And here I was being all sweet.”
“Just get the guitar.” Damie leaned against the building’s outer wall and tucked the kretek between his lips. He dug a lighter out of his jeans pocket as Sionn continued to rub at his side. Cupping his hands to protect the end from the wind, Damie lit the clove cigarette, pulling the end to a cherry red, then reached over to jingle the keys Sionn had left in the lock. Exhaling, he jerked his head toward the door. “Going up?”
“You’re just all smooth and calm, then?” Sionn covered Damie’s lean body, pressing him against the brick wall.
“No,” Damien replied softly. “But, babe, if I start really thinking about it, I’m going to break.”
“I’ll always be here to pick up the pieces.” Sionn stole a quick kiss.
“Even with my brain firing shit off like Beaker and lima beans, I don’t remember her, Irish,” Damie admitted softly. He pulled away from Sionn’s hand, holding his lover back with a bit of distance. “I don’t remember what either of them really look like. I know what they did… to me… to my body. Shit, the fucking crap they did to my mind! But I don’t see them when I think of my parents. I only feel the pain inside of me… on me. I can feel where his hands broke me. I can even tell you what it’s like to have my skin tear apart from his beatings, but what he looks like? Really looks like? I don’t know.
“Maybe I’m afraid of going upstairs and seeing where that asshole dumped her…,” he continued softly, looking off into the street. “And feeling nothing. I don’t know if I can handle feeling nothing for her, Sionn. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me. Maybe I’m really afraid that it makes me like them… and I don’t know if I can handle that.”
“You are nothing like them, a rún. You know how to love, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting your memory of her to be untainted by what is up there. Even if you find you can’t love her, you’re at least trying to respect her. So wait here, Damie boy, and I’ll be down soon enough.” Their kiss was longer this time, flavored with a hint of Damie’s tears and the sweet aftermath of clove smoke. Sionn hugged him briefly, then turned the key, unlocking the lobby door. “And I’ll be bringing your guitar with me too. Can’t leave a piece of us up there, Damie love, can I?”
DAMIEN’S guitar case was right where he’d left it, leaning against the wall near the lift doors. Sionn grabbed the handle and hoisted it up, intending to put it someplace he wouldn’t forget it, when he caught a strong scent in the air. It was curiously metallic and with a faint offal overtone, a familiar smell that made his belly roil.
“Those cleaners were supposed to be—” He took a single step to round the corner, then froze in place, shocked at the dead man sitting in one of his dining room chairs.
He didn’t know the dead man, although his slack, waxen features looked vaguely familiar. What drew Sionn’s eyes was the blue-haired woman zip-tied to a chair next to him. Unlike the man, her limbs were attached, and a healthy flush churned pink into her cheeks. Her eyes were large and wild, and a gag made out of rags kept her mouth secured. Wiggling furiously, she flung her head to Sionn’s right, repeating the action over and over until the chair creaked beneath her shifting weight.
“Leigh!” Sionn felt something hit the guitar case, and he turned, catching sight of a blond man with his arm raised and his hand around a Taser. The device’s two leading lines were strung out, its connectors lying helplessly on the floor as the device discharged its shock into its endcaps.
The asshole… it was the only name Sionn could think to call the man… was bigger than he’d imagined. For some reason, Sionn’s mind had constructed a thinner man, more along the lines of Damien’s lithe body, but the bright-haired villain in their own personal melodrama was built more like a chunk of hewn granite.
A very ugly chunk of granite. Solid and something that would pack a wallop if used on someone’s skull.
“Jesu,” Sionn swore, holding the case up to block the Taser coming at his head. It was easily batted aside, and the man growled, advancing on Sionn with a hitching gait. “Miki boy, you’ve got my respect.”
He didn’t need to wonder if the blond was the same man who’d killed Damie’s mother or attacked Miki. The beating Sinjun’d given the man was still evident on his face. Mottled bruises turned his hatchet-sharp cheeks alarming colors, and one eye was still violently bloodshot, its socket probably blown out or chipped. The swelling turned his attacker’s already harsh face to a grotesque mockery of flesh, more gargoyle than human.
The lumbering stumble he made toward Sionn didn’t help dispel that image, especially when he lifted his arm and Sionn spotted the wicked kitchen knife clenched like a talon in his right hand.
Light caught on the steel blade’s sharp edge, running a line of silver along its length as it descended. Armed only with Damie’s heavy case, Sionn twisted his arms about, trying to bat the knife aside. Its tip caught his shirt, tearing down the length of his chest, and he felt a stinging kiss as the edge sliced into his skin. Grappling Sionn’s arm, the blond shifted on the balls of his feet, trying to get a clear shot at Sionn’s body, but his lack of grace ate at his balance, throwing him off-kilter. His greater weight pushed Sionn back, and they fell, sliding across the recently polished floor.
The guitar case skittered over the wood, skating in slow arcs until it came to rest against the wall across from the elevator’s doors. The blond’s knife flew into the air, and Sionn lost sight of it under the blur of the other man’s arms and grasping hands. Kicking out at the man’s legs, he tried to stand up, but his foot caught on something wet, and Sionn went down again, his left knee slamming into the floor. He tasted blood in his mouth, and Sionn sucked at the bite he’d made in his own lip. The floor was dotted with more blood, and he briefly wondered how deep a cut he’d gotten on his shoulder, when he saw another flash of metal coming out of the shadows above him.
“Shite.” It was time to take a page out of Miki’s book. If it worked for the singer, it would have to work for him. Sionn caught one of the heavy dining room chairs with his outstretched hand and heaved it up above his head, just in time to block the blond’s advance.
The man had either found the formerly airborne knife or had another at the ready, because the blade punctured the chair’s seat with a good four inches of deadly steel spurting
out from the upholstery and stopping a hairsbreadth from Sionn’s nose.
Twisting the chair aside, Sionn caught the man’s arm with the seat back, pulling the knife out of his grasp. Using the chair’s girth to block the man’s next attack, Sionn struggled to get to his feet, nearly falling again when his sneaker hit a patch of blood on the floor.
He didn’t feel woozy. From the amount of blood on the floor, he should have been dizzy. A quick slap of his hand on his shoulder came away with a smatter of red, but not enough to explain the tiny puddles dotting the floor. Staggering to his feet, Sionn grabbed at the chair’s back to use it as a block when he spotted the bloody trickle pouring down the man’s side.
“Miki got a good piece of you, then?” From the man’s uncoordinated charge, Sionn knew he was gambling by inciting the man. Adrenaline might block the man’s pain, but from the fresh gush of blood spreading over his side, it was a risk Sionn was willing to take. Leigh was silent, something Sionn was thankful for. If he could keep the blond’s attention on him, he wouldn’t think about pulling Leigh into the fray, and by taking advantage of the blond’s blood loss and injuries, he could very well get her out alive.
“Well, and me too,” he reminded himself, thinking of the troubled musician he’d left downstairs. “I don’t know what’ll piss Damie off more. Me not coming back or me not coming back with the guitar.”
He didn’t have high hopes of the guitar surviving, but it quickly dropped off his list of worries when the blond seemed to recover his footing and charged him.
The chair came in handy, and Sionn swung it, spearing at the man’s side with its legs. Hooking an end into the man’s wound, Sionn dug in, using his weight to push his makeshift weapon into the blond’s bloody ribs. The scream he ripped from the blond’s mouth was nearly as satisfying as one of Damien’s kisses, and he shoved again, slamming the chair leg until he felt something beneath the man’s skin give.
