by Steve McHugh
He stayed there for several seconds, making sure she wasn’t going to fall. When he was satisfied, and with his hat remaining in the sink, he wiped the knife on a tea towel. He took it with him—he might need it again—and made his way back to the stairs, ascending them as slowly as he would allow himself.
“Are you coming back?” a male called out from above, and for a second Elias wondered if he had the wrong house. He thought back to the information he’d been given. No, this was the correct address; he’d been given a map of the area confirming it. Maybe the target had moved? He considered that unlikely, as the information was fresh and people don’t usually apply for a credit card and then move a week later. Something was amiss, though, and he wanted to know what and why.
He reached the landing above as the man began chuckling. “Come on, baby. I’m ready for you.”
Elias walked to the door and stepped inside, enjoying the look of shock on the man’s face.
“Well, now, this is unexpected,” Elias said and took several steps toward the man, whose arms and legs were tied to the bed with colorful silk scarfs. He was naked and had obviously been expecting some sort of sexual liaison.
He opened his mouth to scream, but Elias placed the tip of the stiletto dagger against his penis. “Don’t.”
The man closed his mouth.
Elias removed the dagger and used the tea towel as a gag on the incapacitated man. “I’ll be back in a minute. Just stay there.”
The man’s eyes showed his terror, and Elias left him there, going back downstairs to find the body of the woman he’d killed. After checking that she’d been drained of her blood, he picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and walked with her to the living room, dropping her onto one of the two small gray sofas that were in there.
He went back to the kitchen and retrieved his hat, finding it dry. He tested the rim before putting it on his head. He’d been embarrassed that it hadn’t been dry when he’d put it on in front of Nergal, and didn’t want to make such a rookie mistake again.
Once he was sure he’d cleaned up, he made his way back upstairs and looked around the bedroom. Apart from the king-size bed with the naked man tied to it, there were two chests of drawers, both in a wood so dark it almost looked black, a large TV, and a small table and chairs. Elias found himself wondering where they got the chests of drawers from as he rather liked them. He considered taking them, but he wasn’t there for thievery. The dark blue curtains had been pulled shut. Elias moved them aside slightly and checked that the windows were all closed. When he was satisfied, he closed the bedroom door, took a chair, and placed it next to the bed beside the man’s feet.
“Here’s how this works. I’m going to remove the gag and you’re going to answer my questions. If you don’t, I’m going to hurt you. Badly. I don’t want to do that. Mostly because I don’t like doing it. But not liking doing something doesn’t mean you’re not really good at it. Do you understand me?”
The man nodded.
Elias removed the gag and returned to his seat. He felt the dead woman’s memories fluttering into his mind. “Your girlfriend Bianca is dead. Your name is Blake, yes?”
Tears fell down Blake’s cheeks. Elias couldn’t decide if they were tears for Blake’s current predicament or the loss of Bianca.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?”
“My name is Elias, and I’m a redcap.”
“A what?”
“A monster, or mythological creature, or whatever tag you wish to put on it.” Elias tapped the rim on his fedora. “You see, I use my knife to kill people, and the blood spilled is collected in this hat. It’s a little more complicated than that, as clearly this hat can’t hold several pints of blood, but those are the basics. The important bit that you need to know is that once I’ve absorbed someone’s blood into my hat and put it back on, I know their memories. Only the last week or so, but it’s quite handy. Unfortunately, your deceased loved one didn’t know anything useful about my need to be here, and I can’t take two people’s blood in a twenty-four-hour period, so we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way. Me ask. You answer.”
“You murdered her,” Blake snapped. “You bastard. You didn’t need to do that.”
“Oh dear, it seems you’re upset. Well, yes, I did kill her, and no, I didn’t have a choice. Would it make you feel better if I searched her memories for something about you?” Elias was silent for a few seconds, his eyes fixed on the floor. “She liked you. Never more than that. Who is Rob?”
“My best friend.”
“You sure? Because he’s been riding your girlfriend like a pony. She really enjoyed it too. I don’t think she was all that nice. But then you don’t come off too well in her memories either. You’re hung up on . . .” He paused. “Layla Starsmore. That’s really the surname she chose?” Elias chuckled to himself.
Blake’s eyes opened in shock.
In an instant the humor was gone from Elias’s face, his expression replaced with one of cold determination. “Tell me about Layla. Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Blake said.
Elias removed a second blade from its sheath, this one only a few inches long, but with a serrated edge. “I’ve used this blade to skin animals. Would you like to see what it does to you?”
Blake shook his head. “I don’t know where she is, we’re not together anymore.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t know. She never lived with me here. She moved out of her old place about six months ago. But she moved again a few weeks ago. No one she knows will tell me where she is.”
“I get the feeling that the problem in these relationships isn’t the woman. Bianca thought you a controlling bully. You said some awful things to her, and you hit her once too. Although it’s weird that you like to be so controlling in every part of your companion’s life, but you also like to lose that control when having sex. You like to be tied up, hurt. She found it weird, uncomfortable . . . unpleasant. It’s no wonder she wanted something extra from someone else, although Rob comes across as a total asshole too. Maybe that was her type.” He placed the edge of the blade on Blake’s shin. “Where does Layla live?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you. I’d tell you everything.”
“I know.” Elias counted to three in his head and then cut through Blake’s leg in one motion. The wound was deep and bled severely. Elias waited for Blake to stop crying and begging before speaking again. “You done?” He understood that people didn’t deal with physical pain exceptionally well, but that was no reason to beg. Crying he could understand, he had no problem with that, but begging was something he couldn’t stand in a person. It was just so unnecessary.
“I know where Layla works,” Blake almost shouted.
“Excellent. And where would that be?”
“Train depot. She has some evening job there three nights a week. Wednesday to Friday. It’s the only depot in the city, near the football stadium.”
“That’s excellent news, and should make finding both it and her easier. Thank you for your help.”
“You’ll let me live?”
Elias shook his head. “No. You die today, and there’s nothing I can do about it. But I can make your death quick and painless, or lengthy and drawn out. I do have a few more questions, though, so maybe you’ll be able to convince me to let you go.”
Blake nodded in agreement.
“She applied for a credit card using this address. So tell me, why doesn’t she live here?”
“Bianca and me, we used her old address details to try to blag a credit card.”
“Ah, that makes sense. How’d that work out for you? It wasn’t exactly smart, was it?”
Blake shook his head. “I didn’t know she’d moved house, and when they called the phone number we put on the application to confirm her address, I gave this one. I panicked.”
“Doesn’t explain why you used the name Layla Cassidy instead of the one she was using. Cassidy is her
real surname.”
Blake appeared confused. “She used a fake name? I used to go through her things when I had the chance, to make sure she wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t have been. One time, I found some old letters that Layla had hidden in a drawer. They were addressed to her mother, but used the last name Cassidy. I assumed that was her mother’s maiden name, that’s why we used it.”
“Her mother’s maiden name?” Elias chuckled. “This is quite an impressive level of screw-up on your part. You thought you were being clever, but in reality you gave us the information we needed to find her. And you got yourself and your lady killed too. Not anyone’s finest hour.” Elias stood, preparing to finish the job and leave.
“So, you’re not human?” Blake stammered out, clearly looking for more time.
“A redcap. I wear neither a red hat nor a cap. Although the latter was true once. The name is meant to be more symbolic than anything else, I think. And that’s all I plan on telling you. I’d like to say it was a pleasure, but according to these memories, you’re a nasty little toad of a human being, and frankly the world is better off without you in it.”
“You’re going to kill Layla?”
“That’s not the plan.”
“She needs taking down a peg or two. Thinks she’s better than me.”
Elias placed the tip of the stiletto against his jugular. “From everything I’ve seen, she probably is.” He pushed the blade up with incredible force, killing Blake instantly. He stepped aside, removing the blade as he walked, avoiding the inevitable blood that left the wound.
Elias would need to spend a few hours cleaning up after himself. He wanted to leave as few clues at the scene as possible. The police wouldn’t have a chance of finding him, but he did consider leaving evidence to frame the friend, Rob. Bianca’s memories showed him to be even worse than Blake, a man with few morals. Maybe a man like that would be better off punished too. Elias smiled at the thought and pushed it aside. Maybe later.
He removed the phone from his pocket and dialed the rest of the team.
“Yes?” a woman asked.
“Dara, it’s done here. I’ll be back soon. I need details on a train depot near a football stadium.”
“There’s an American football stadium in the city?” She sounded confused.
“No, a normal football stadium. Soccer, as you like to call it, much to my chagrin.”
“I’ll get on it.”
He ended the call. Dara Kanevsky was a valuable member of his team. Born in America in the mid-1950s, she’d lived with her family in San Francisco. That was where, at the age of seven, she’d discovered a talent for hurting people. Something she had seemingly inherited from her parents. Her father was quite the celebrity at the time, having killed several people in and around Northern California. That had stopped when Dara killed them both in 1975, after deciding that her parents were getting too sloppy. Taunting the press and police was a pointless action. Grandstanding for the sake of it.
Elias remembered meeting Dara for the first time, and realizing whose daughter she was. He’d been genuinely starstruck. People like her father had spread terror all over, and it was something that Elias had always been impressed with. He hadn’t liked her father’s taunting, though, which was just a step too close to idiocy for him. Like all members of Elias’s team, Dara wasn’t human, but she was the one he felt the most akin to. He knew she’d do what he asked.
Elias glanced down at Blake’s body and sighed. Tomorrow night they’d go after Layla. But tonight, well, tonight he had less fun things to deal with. It couldn’t all be about getting his own way.
5
It had been nearly two days since Layla had talked with Chloe about her father and she’d felt as if a weight had been lifted from her. That night, the entire evening shift had flown by. But now that she was driving back out of the electric gates of the train depot for the second time in two days, she began to wonder how much longer she really had to work in this place.
It wasn’t that the job was hard, or that the people were bad; it was just a combination of boredom and a complete and total apathy from those in management. It was as if they didn’t care what happened to the majority of people who worked for them, and it created a “them and us” scenario that made work feel like she was constantly trying to do a good job for no reason whatsoever.
The night had been long, and when she’d finished at midnight, she’d been looking forward to getting home and crashing into her bed. She pulled into the private parking area at the rear of her property and parked her ten-year-old Volkswagen Golf in her designated space.
“Hey, you,” a woman shouted at Layla as she got out of her car.
Layla sighed. “Hello, Sharon. It’s a bit late.”
Sharon Weaver was one of Layla’s neighbors. She lived on the top floor of the building with her boyfriend, and was about as pleasant as leprosy. Layla had heard from several other tenants who hated the pair of them. They had a tendency to have lots of loud, drunken parties, to which they would invite their loud, obnoxiously drunk friends, and they would always get out of control and often spill out of the building. If the police ever came to the block, it was pretty much always because of them.
“Late for what?” Sharon asked, slightly slurring her words. Sharon was a bully. She intimidated, or got her boyfriend to intimidate, anyone who spoke out against her, usually by threatening to attack them or their property. Layla had crossed paths with her on a few occasions, but usually just ignored the pair of them. They were more trouble than it was worth.
“I’m tired, Sharon. It’s been a long day. What’s up?” Layla kept her voice calm, not wanting to cause an argument.
Sharon stepped toward Layla until only a few feet separated them. She was a few inches taller than Layla, her long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She told everyone she did kickboxing, and from her build, Layla imagined that to be true.
“There a problem here?” Sharon’s boyfriend asked as he left the rear entrance to the building.
Sharon’s boyfriend, Nigel Johnson, was six-four and weighed at least eighteen stone. Layla had often seen him wearing football kit, surrounded by similar-looking men who appeared to be under the impression that their size gave them the right to intimidate.
“You’re always looking down your nose at me,” Sharon said.
“I’m really not,” Layla assured her.
“You tell her, Shaz,” Nigel shouted. He cackled to himself and took a swig from a bottle of beer.
“You are not all that, bitch,” Shaz said, seemingly bolstered by support from Nigel. She wagged a finger in Layla’s direction.
Layla wanted to grab the digit and snap it. Snap all of them one at a time until Sharon apologized and promised to stop being an asshole to everyone in the building. Layla forced her mind to calm down.
“Sharon, I think you should go back home.”
Sharon took another step forward and jabbed Layla in the chest with her finger. “You think?” She turned back to Nigel. “This bitch thinks.”
Nigel laughed once again.
“So, you think I should go back home. Well, let me tell you something, you stuck-up cow. I’m going to knock you out, and then maybe you won’t be able to look like you’re better than me. I want to see you watching the floor every single time I walk past. You understand me?”
Layla forced herself to not make eye contact as the smell of alcohol and cigarettes permeated her immediate surroundings. “You’re drunk, Sharon. I . . . thi—” She paused for a heartbeat before continuing. “I would go home and sleep it off, if I were you, before I call the police.”
Layla immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. Sharon’s eyes narrowed and she shoved Layla back up against her car.
“Knock her out,” Nigel called from somewhere behind Sharon. Layla didn’t want to risk even the slightest glance.
“Don’t do this,” Layla said, as part of her screamed to hurt the larger woman.
Sharo
n pushed Layla again. “Make.” Push. “Me.” Push.
“Do you need your boyfriend to feel big? Is that why he’s there? You scared what might happen if you’re all alone with me?”
Sharon laughed and turned to Nigel. “Go back in, baby. You can watch from our bedroom window.”
Layla watched Nigel finish his beer, throwing the bottle at a nearby bin, missing, and smashing it. He shrugged and entered the building.
“Just you and me now, bitch,” Sharon said smugly. She turned back toward Layla, who punched her in the side of the head.
Sharon staggered away to one side, closer to her red Ford Fiesta ST. She placed one hand on top of the car, trying to steady herself. Layla came up to her side, swiped the arm away, and smashed Sharon’s forehead onto the car roof.
Sharon dropped to her knees, and Layla noticed the dent in the Fiesta’s roof, stepping back to allow Sharon to get to her feet.
“Sucker-punched me,” Sharon said, spitting blood onto the floor. “Little bitch.”
“I really don’t like that word.”
Sharon rushed forward. All of the hours and hours of training that Layla had gone through as a child, constantly being told the need to win at any cost was the most important thing, fought for supremacy over her need to not take it too far.
Layla blocked a punch and grabbed hold of Sharon’s wrist, stepping around her and forcing the larger woman off her feet and onto the ground. A voice told her to break Sharon’s wrist, to hurt her more, to make a point, but she ignored it. A knee to the side of Sharon’s face ended whatever fight she still had left.
Layla stood in the car park. Her breathing remained heavy, her hands shaking, as excitement coursed through her body. A voice told her to keep going, to make a point that she wasn’t to be messed around with.
