Ana came out of her office carrying her overstuffed briefcase, Armani pantsuit still looking crisp. She pushed her straight red hair behind her ears, and nodded to Redi. They walked to the elevator and Ana used her thumbprint to activate the private elevator.
Redi’s tall frame cast a shadow over the petite accountant as they waited for the elevator. She tracked both ends of the hallway in peripheral vision. There was no movement except for the thin images of the ghosts nearby.
The elevator stopped in the parking garage. The white limousine waited for them near the elevator. Suddenly, there was a low growl behind Redi, and the sound of a large animal’s claws scraping the concrete. Without turning, Redi shoved Ana in the limo and jumped in behind her, drawing the small gun from a shoulder holster.
“What are you doing?” the accountant asked.
Redi looked through the side and back tinted windows to the empty garage. “You didn’t hear anything?”
Ana straightened her suit. “Not a thing.”
“I heard something, maybe a large dog,” Redi said, putting the gun away. She tapped on the glass between them and the driver to signal they could go. Whatever had been there, it was gone now.
When they arrived at Ana’s apartment building, she said to Redi, “It’s a good thing it’s Friday. You need to get some rest this weekend. I don’t need a jumpy bodyguard.”
Redi nodded and watched her enter the building.
The ghosts followed her down the street and into the subway. She waited on the subway platform at the right end furthest from the Friday night crowd.
“What do you think is happening?” she asked them softly.
The female ghost spun wildly. Glowing bits of her smashed brain disappeared into the shadows. The male ghosts made faces at Redi while taking turns on their knees pounding the concrete platform and trying to tear at her with their hands.
“No opinion?” She could use a cigarette, but the vibration under her feet and a gentle push of air signaled her train coming.
The streets of the Lower East Side were filled with people on their way to dinner, mostly innocents, although she didn’t believe in innocence. The others, pickpockets, drug dealers, gang members, and desperate people, were sprinkled among the crowd. Only the most dangerous dared to make eye contact with Redi. They nodded respectfully when she looked in their direction.
As soon as she unlocked her building door, the three ghosts flitted away. She sighed. That meant there would be different ghosts waiting in her apartment. They had started following her three years ago, when she changed careers. It was ironic that they showed up after she stopped being a hired assassin.
Midway up the second flight of the creaky wooden stairs, she heard the growl again. Redi took her gun out and stood in a shadowed corner of the hallway. The sound of claws slamming the stairs sped up as the large animal began to run.
She clicked off the safety and waited. The growls were deafening. Unable to stand it any longer, Redi ran to the edge of the stairwell and leaned over the banister pointing her gun down… at nothing.
Leaning back against the wall, she took a deep breath. Either she was losing her mind, or someone was playing an elaborate trick. Someone with a death wish, because this wasn’t even mildly amusing. She walked up to the third floor with her gun in her right hand, unlocked her apartment door, turned off the alarm and locked the door behind her.
She flipped on the light. Movement in the center of the living room made her swing the gun with two hands at a huge two-headed gray and white wolf. It stood almost as tall as Redi in front of her red leather couch, both heads growling. She aimed for its heart.
“Sh-h-h, Geh, sit down,” a male voice said from Redi’s right. The animal crouched on the floor, low growls still echoing from its twin throats, two pairs of red eyes fixed on Redi.
She spun around and pointed the gun at a slim, tall man leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was dressed in a white tuxedo; his long wavy dark hair almost touched the floor. His features were Japanese, but his skin was mocha brown, the same shade as Redi’s. She thought he had no eyes, but realized they were entirely black. She could see the wall through him.
Some kind of ghost, but not anyone she had killed.
“Who are you?” she asked, putting the gun down on the ebony wood coffee table.
He smiled, showing stained pointed teeth. “I need a favor.”
“I don’t do that kind of work anymore,” Redi said, pouring gin into a glass. “What would you offer me to come out of retirement, a shot at redemption?”
She lit a cigarette, inhaled slowly and sat down on the couch. He sat opposite her, but not on anything she could see. The dog lay at his feet, its huge heads surrounded by blue flames.
He shook his head. “That only happens in the movies.”
“Then why should I do this favor for you?”
He uncrossed his long legs and leaned forward.
“After all you’ve done,” he said, spreading long fingers out, the three-inch nails shaped to needle points. “What would removing one more person from this time and space mean?”
“It occurs to me, looking at you, that one more person just might mean the difference between one level of hell and another,” she said.
“You’ve got to know that, with your body count, there’s not much to hope for when you die,” he said, waving around the room.
The room filled with ghosts, the silent kind that Redi was used to seeing. Usually there were only a few at a time, now they crowded the room. They watched, a few laughed silently and pointed.
“So I kill this one person for you and get what in return?” she asked.
He stood and walked through ebony wood coffee table. The dog rolled over onto its side. “I could get you a few hours a day without the company of your victims.”
“I’ve gotten used to being followed by ghosts.” She reached through his leg to set her glass down on the coffee table. “I’m sure there’s somebody else you could get to kill this person for you,” she said, putting her feet up on the coffee table. The ghost paced back and forth in front of her, his long hair streamed behind him as if floating through water.
“I can’t say why right now, but you have to be the one,” he said.
Redi leaned forward, took a drink. “Hmmm, let me take a guess. I’m in so deep that one killing won’t really affect my, let’s call it, Karma?”
“Actually killing this person is going to be good for you. Get you one step closer to your true destiny.” He stopped pacing and sat down again in the air. The dog sat up and raised its heads. One stared at Redi, the other at the ghost.
“My destiny? What the hell does that mean?” she asked.
“Hell indeed.” He smiled.
Redi stared at him. “You seem familiar, but I don’t remember you being one of my hits,” she said, pointing her cigarette at him.
The dog barked. The ghost glared at it. “We — uh — worked together. You didn’t kill me.”
“I always work alone,” she said, narrowing her eyes.
He closed his eyes as if he was listening to something, and then looked at her, “We have — had a very special relationship. I can’t say any more about our association at this time.”
“It’s hard to imagine I would have forgotten you,” Redi said.
“In time you will remember me and much more. Trauma can make it necessary for the mind to veil certain… events until the time is right.”
A flash of her stepfather’s face and the smell of burning flesh made her stomach twist. The thick scar tissue on her back itched at the memory. “Who is this person that you want killed?” she asked.
“You’ll get all the details when you agree to do it,” he said.
Redi looked around the room. There were more ghosts there than ever before. All people she had killed, including the occasional dog or cat, pets of her hits that starved to death. She sighed.
“You’re right, one more dead person isn’t a big
deal,” she said, grounding out the cigarette in a brass ashtray. “Here’s the thing, I need more incentive if I’m going to add to my entourage.”
He closed his eyes again and pressed on his temples with fingers so long they looked like they had an extra joint.
“Okay,” he said. “I can offer you revenge against your stepfather.”
She jerked back on the couch. “He’s dead.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “I have access to his essence. I can choose to interrupt his eternal suffering so you can have some quality time with him.”
“You’re more than a ghost, aren’t you?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Are you the Devil?”
He laughed. “No, but you might say I’m second-in-command.”
Redi stood up and walked to the window overlooking her busy street. “Can I have time to think about your offer?” She turned to face him.
He pressed in close. She held her ground. A stench of burning flesh surrounded him. “One night.”
She thought for a second that he was going to kiss her, but he inhaled deeply as though breathing in her scent, and turned quickly.
The two-headed dog rose and followed him across the room.
“Sleep well, Redi Thomas.” He snapped his fingers and all the other ghosts disappeared. He smiled at her, bowed and sank through the floor with the dog.
She leaned against the wall and looked at the room, the empty room. It had been so long since she had been alone here. Perhaps she could sleep without nightmares this one night.
The Gate of Relentless Congruity:
Redi sipped her second cup of coffee and lit another cigarette. She had one dream last night. The one recurring train dream she’d had for years. The conductor was a pale, bloated man with black eyes and a belt of keys. The dream ended as it always did, with her and the conductor working on her stepfather while he was tied to a table in one of the train cars.
She smiled at the memory of his imagined screams.
The talking ghost rose through the floor with his dog. “We can make him scream together,” he said, sitting down opposite her. The dog walked over to Redi and sniffed her with its twin heads, whined and sat on the floor.
Redi thought she heard a whisper under the dog’s whine, but couldn’t make out the words. “Okay. Who do you want me to kill?”
Ana Sanchez, the accountant. Redi should have known it wasn’t going to be a stranger. She had nothing against the woman, but her feelings or lack of feelings for a hit had never stopped her from completing a contract in the past.
“I’ll have to leave town, change identities,” she said. “No one will hire a bodyguard with a dead client.”
“Do what you need, but it must be done this weekend and — “
“I got it the first time, leave her body where her family will find it,” she said.
He smiled widely.
“I do this and I get to make him suffer?” she asked.
“Oh, we don’t have to wait. Your word is good enough. Let’s take that train ride.” He leaned close to her, his hand brushed her face. Redi didn’t feel his hand but there was a jolt of scalding air on her skin. She closed her eyes.
Clanging metal jolted Redi upright in her seat, her knees bumping against the back of a train seat. The clink of heavy chains and metal tools jostling against each other sang out from under the conductor’s long blue coat as he walked down the aisle. His mouth was a dark wound in a pasty face, his eyes two shadows under the ledge of his cap.
As soon as he left Redi quickly moved to the exit in front of the car and punched the door panel. She walked through the opening and took the passageway in two quick jumps. The next car door wouldn’t open. She looked through its tiny window. A dark curtain blocked the view.
The conductor was suddenly behind her. He wrapped his arm around her neck. She kicked and elbowed him but his steel grip never loosened. He squeezed until she slipped into unconsciousness.
Redi woke strapped to a metal table under a circle of bright light. A rubber sheet covered her naked body. As she struggled against the leather straps a familiar voice asked, “Are you so reluctant to accept your reward?”
“This isn’t what we agreed on.” She twisted her head to locate the speaker in the dark shadows of the train car.
A man wearing a long blue conductor’s coat walked into the circle of light surrounding the table. It was the ghost she’d made a deal with. His eyes were completely white here.
“Now, let’s see the whole picture.” He pulled the rubber sheet off her naked body. Old scars lay in patterns across her chest, stomach and legs. The burn scars on her back were a thick pad against the metal table. “Your stepfather was a meticulous man.”
“What are you doing?” she asked, shuddering.
“I’m honoring our agreement.” He gently traced a scar on her stomach with his fingernail. His touch was light as butterfly wings. “I’m pleased to be able to provide you what you require.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” she screamed, kicking in spite of the restraints. Bones in her ankles cracked.
He opened his coat to reveal shiny surgical tools interlaced in the brown skin of his chest.
The leather straps bit into her wrists and ankles as she thrashed back and forth. Animal sounds rose from her chest, erupting into deep shrieks. She bit her tongue; blood mixed with spit as she screamed and growled at him.
He waited until her energy was gone and she collapsed onto the metal table. Then he slowly pulled a slim, hook-shaped scalpel from his chest.
“Please, don’t…” she said in a small, hoarse voice.
He leaned close to her face. A sweet scent made her stomach churn; it was the cologne her stepfather wore. It took all her strength not to vomit. The ghost laid the cold metal tool on her convulsing stomach. “Look.” He pointed across the room.
A light turned on the opposite wall of the train car. Invisible bonds against the padded wall held her stepfather. He started whimpering.
The ghost held her head up and picked the scalpel up with his other hand. He used the blunt side to trace a long ‘Z’ shaped scar that crossed her belly. Burning slid deep from inside her and out through the scar. A childhood of fear and deep rage began to boil away. She moaned. Her stepfather screamed as his stomach opened at the middle; thick black liquid bubbled out. Her scar disappeared.
The ghost rubbed hot fingers over the re-smoothed skin. “This will take a while. Watch closely.”
He worked slowly. Her stepfather screamed and begged as his body gathered fresh wounds. Redi studied how each instrument was used. When her scars were gone, he released her from the table and they worked together on her stepfather to create new wounds.
Hours seemed to pass and Redi didn’t tire. What was left when he finally stopped screaming didn’t resemble a human as much as a dissection diagram.
Redi opened her eyes. She was still sitting at the kitchen table opposite the ghost. The clock over the stove showed about the same time.
“What kind of trick was that?” she asked, throwing the coffee cup at the ghost. The ceramic mug passed through him and shattered against the wall.
“No trick,” he said, opening his hands as if to show he had nothing up his sleeves. “Look.” He pointed to her chest.
She lifted her t-shirt. The scars were gone. She jumped up and ran to the bedroom and looked at the brown smooth skin on her back and legs. All the scars were gone.
He stood in the doorway. “What do you feel inside when you think of him?”
The deep twisting bitterness was gone. Nightmare memories no longer burned in her gut. She sat down on the bed, picked up a cigarette, looked at it and put it down.
“Is this real?” she asked, tears in her eyes. All the hatred, disregard for human life, disbelief in anything good was gone. The pain of all the people she had killed overwhelmed her, she ran to the sink to vomit. Redi asked, “How did you do this?”
The ghost shrugged. “Bo
dies are illusionary fragments of flesh. This body is in this reality, so this is real. In another realm things could be very different.”
“You like to talk in riddles, don’t you?” she said, wiping away tears.
He smiled. “I assume you can still do your part, even without your deep-seated, unresolved anger?” he asked, standing.
Redi closed her eyes. “Yes, I can.” She picked up the cigarette and lit it. “I’ll need some time alone.”
“Indeed.” He bowed and melted into the floor with the dog.
The Gate of Descending Reversion:
Redi shaved her head, dressed in black jeans, and shirt. She pulled a dark leather jacket out of the back of her closet. The black felt hat fit snugly. The wide brim cast a deep shadow over her face.
She entered Ana’s building at midnight. The apartment building was easy to get in since Redi knew where the secured entrances were and how to open them, information necessary to protect her client.
Cutting the lines to the security cameras was just as easy. The lock to Ana’s apartment wasn’t much of a challenge. The entryway in the large apartment was dimly lit. The bedrooms were down the hall to the left. The light was on in Ana’s office to the right of the living room. Redi leaned against the hallway wall listening to the accountant type on the computer.
She stood in the shadow of the hall for a long time. She had never felt before how connected one human life was to so many others: Ana’s son, husband, clients, relatives and friends. This woman was loved and needed by others. Her death would cause so much pain. As much as Redi didn’t want to kill her, she couldn’t return to the soulless person she had been.
Redi used a silencer so Ana’s son wouldn’t wake up. She dragged Ana’s body to the middle of the living room.
The accountant’s husband was supposed to be out of town. Redi had no idea they kept a gun in the apartment. She took two bullets in the back but managed to get out of the apartment after rushing him. He put another bullet in her upper right arm before she knocked him out.
Redi stumbled up the emergency stairs to the roof and collapsed against the air conditioning tower. Dark blood pooled around her in a slowly widening circle.
How To Recognize A Demon Has Become Your Friend (Necon Modern Horror Book 9) Page 4
