by Roger Keller
“You’re still scared of me aren’t you?” she said.
“Kind of,” I said. “Are you scared of me?”
We stared at each other for a long time.
“OK.” Heather got up. “Let’s go find those fuckers that stole Marcello’s book.”
*****
I pulled a phone book out of a kitchen cabinet. I’d found the dog-eared relic in the laundry room when I moved in and never bothered to throw it away. The Society of Ancient Wisdom was listed as some kind of volunteer social organization.
“No shit.” Heather ripped out the page.
We followed the directions to the revitalized and historic, downtown area.
“Everything’s new here,” she said. “It’s supposed to look old, but it’s fucking fake. That phone book was like, ancient. You should have just looked on-line.”
“I don’t want any evidence linking us to them,” I said.
“Good point, considering what’s going to happen to those poor fuckers when we find them,” she said.
“Maybe they read from the book and a demon showed up and destroyed them all years ago.” Heather groaned and fidgeted. “Marcello’s book could be anywhere.”
“Oh, they’re still around.” I pointed down the street.
I’d driven past the gray, stone building dozens of times a week, when I worked at the Pederson Center. I never even wondered what it was. A modern, security fence surrounded the property and lights burned in tall slit windows. Somebody was home. I kept driving.
“It’s right there,” Heather said, as we drove past.
“I’m not gonna park right in front of their building,” I said.
I found a parking space a few blocks away.
“This used to be a really bad area when I was a kid,” I said. “My dad would lock the doors when we drove through here.”
“Now all the rich crooks kicked the poor ones out,” she said. “I was hoping we’d run into some real gangsters. The ones who wear suits and work in offices are so fucking lame.”
A pack of faceless men in hoodies and baggy pants shuffled down the street toward us. They looked like grown up versions of Ron and his buddies. Heather smiled wolfishly and dropped her disguise for a second. They stopped cold. “What the fuck?” one of them whispered. Heather watched with dismay as they scurried across the street.
“Really?” she said. “Fucking kidding me.”
“It’s just as well, we’re not here for that,” I said.
We walked past the granite building, casually holding hands like a normal couple out bar-hopping.
“Society of Ancient Wisdom.” I read the bronze plaque set in the stone pillars that served as a frame for the gate.
“How interesting,” Heather said.
We crossed the street and leaned on a new BMW. The alarm blared a second later. Heather tapped the hood. The alarm sputtered and died, as if she’d choked it to death.
“What do they call that kind of building?” Heather said. “It’s old for real, like it has class.”
“It’s called art deco, or something,” I said. “It’s from the Thirties. You know Marcello never told me when the book was stolen.”
“I bet the book doesn’t even do anything,” she said.
“Yeah, he probably just wants it for bragging rights,” I said.
“Like, I bet all the other wizards and sorceresses gather in a castle somewhere. They’ll all stand around a big stone table and show off their magic toys.” Heather jumped on the BMW’s hood to get a better look at our target.
“What do you see?” I said.
“Not much.” She kicked her boots off. “I’m going for a closer look.”
Heather took off in a blur, her toe claws striking sparks off the BMW’s hood. I saw her for a second, perched on the fence like some bird of prey, then she disappeared again. She became a black shape, crawling across the granite walls. A pair of orange eyes flashed back at me.
I waited for what seemed like hours, while Heather clung to the wall like a spider watched one of the narrow windows.
A police car rolled past. My eyes met the officer in the shotgun seat. They were working two per car now. I smiled and waved my phone at him. They ignored me and kept driving. I went back to looking at the local news on my phone. The massacre at the house on Maple Street was thought to be drug related, or the work of a satanic cult, or both. A large, hairy, man-like creature was seen rummaging through dumpsters at the upscale Greenwich apartment complex. “Hope you like that rich-people trash, Monroe,” I said to myself. The residents had formed a neighborhood watch and armed themselves. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t find anything.
Below Heather, two goons in gray suits walked around the perimeter of the building. They randomly swept the manicured lawn with their flashlights. Their voices carried across the street.
“Lavinia’s nuts,” the tall goon said. “I’m tellin’ ya there’s nothing out here.”
The other goon, who was built like a sumo wrestler, elbowed the tall goon. “Lavinia said she felt a presence.”
“You believe in that shit now?” the tall goon said.
“Fuck no. But, it all pays the same.” The fat goon shined his light up the side of the building, narrowly missing Heather. “OK, we tried. I don’t see anything. Must have scared ‘em off.”
The goons were cannon fodder and didn’t even know it. Whoever Lavinia was, she clearly had some idea of what might be waiting outside. If the goons didn’t make it back in one piece, then she’d know what she was up against.
I heard Heather coming before I could see her. The wrought iron fence buckled as she launched herself through the air. She landed behind me, caving the BMW’s hood in.
“You should have seen the weird shit they’re doing in there,” she said. “Come on let’s head back. Were running out of night.”
“So how hard is this gonna be?” I said.
“I wish we could wait ‘till the guy comes back and sees what we did to his car,” she said.
“Oh fuck.” I squeezed my eyes and groaned. “That’s not an answer.”
“The answer is.” She rolled her eyes and glared at me. “I don’t know what the fuck to do here. I’ve only seen shit like this in movies. I think some of them might be like, for real.”
“What do you mean, for real?” We started down the road to my car.
“I mean that I get the same feeling from some of them, that I get from Marcello and his weird friends,” she said. “A lot of them are just there for show, like a social thing. One of them looked right at me. I know she couldn’t see me. But she knew I was watching her.”
“I don’t think we have that much to worry about,” I said. “I mean Marcello’s magic didn’t work on me and he’s got to be more powerful than these guys and he was worried about you getting out of control.”
“Yeah.” She perked up. “They’re not gonna know what hit ‘em.”
“All we have to do is take our time and plan this out.” I hit the remote starter on my key-fob.
“There’s like, a lot of them, more than a hundred people in there,” she said. “We’re gonna need some more guns.”
Chapter 9
Heather’s house was located in a once fashionable, Seventies era subdivision. Working class families lived in the other split-level, ranch houses. I pulled in just as Heather’s neighbor was leaving for work. He loaded a battered steel toolbox into a pick-up truck with matching damage. Heather slammed her door and waved at him. The poor guy just stared at us, open mouthed, frozen in fear.
“I think that’s one of the people that mows my lawn,” Heather said. “Like, about a year after I moved in, the whole block had a meeting and decided to do the upkeep on the outside of my house. It’s not like I’m gonna go out in the sun and clean the fucking gutters or something. Even if I could, I wouldn’t, ‘cause I don’t give a fuck. So, a sad, scared, little group came over right after sunset. They promised to leave me alone, but they didn’t want my spook
y house ruining their property values. It’s like a villager’s tribute or something, like I’m the evil countess they don’t want anybody knowing about. They stay out of my house and I leave them alone.”
Even in the early morning darkness I could see how artificially nice her house looked. Outside it was like a model home, meant to trick you into signing a long term lease.
“Come on,” Heather said.
A thin layer of dust covered the door handle, which wasn’t even locked. I paused. Some instinct reminded me of just what I was walking into.
Heather pushed past me and turned the lights on. Inside, her house was like a smaller version of Lee’s mansion. VHS tapes, magazines and books had been carefully stacked in piles. Several Nineties era video game systems sat by a broken TV. We followed a trail of footprints left in the thick dust on the floors.
“You really like wood paneling.” I pulled at a piece that was peeling off the wall.
“I don’t spend much time up here anymore,” she said. “It got cluttered over the years. I don’t want to throw something away that I might need later.”
“Yeah, it is cluttered.” I squeezed between the stacks, worrying I might tip them over.
I knocked over a stack of Cosmopolitans as we entered a hallway. Heather knelt and carefully re-stacked each one.
“I never lived in a real house before.” She pushed a piece of paneling back in place with her thumb. “When I was a kid, we always rented. The places my dad found were always shitty and falling apart. When Lee, eh when I broke up with him, I decided to buy this place.” She turned to me. “Actually buying a house turned out to be a real pain in the ass.”
“How’s that,” I said.
“You’d think I could just give them some cash and they’d give me some keys,” she said, “and try to get a house showing after dark.”
“Yeah, they don’t like anyone using cash anymore,” I said.
“That’s bullshit,” she said. “They just want everybody in debt. Anyway, I had to hire some assholes, like the kind of guys who wear suits to work, to deal with my money. Things didn’t end well for them.”
“They try to rip you off?” I said.
“Of course,” she said.” But, there was other stuff too.”
I picked up a laserdisc box from a stack by the bathroom. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on three huge discs.
“I’ve never seen one of these in person,” I said.
“Those things sucked,” Heather said. “They were supposed to be the next big thing. Lee went on and on about how superior they were. I went through a dozen players. They always broke down. And sometimes you had to turn the disc over like a cassette tape or change discs midway through the movie. It totally ruined the experience.”
I opened the box and took out a silver disc the size of an LP.
“Now I can’t remember that fucker’s name.” Heather took the disc and slipped it back into the box, then put back in it’s stack.
“Who’s name?” I said.
“That corporate weasel who tried to rip me off.” She ran her fingers through her dark blonde hair, frustrated. “Now it’s going to bug me until I remember.”
I sat down on the arm of a couch that blocked half the hall.
“So, I started off by filling Devaraux’s coffin with cash and silver coins,” she said.
“What? Why did you put money in a coffin?” I said.
“Looking back I guess it was kinda lame. But I had a coffin laying around and I wanted to fuck with Eric.” She snapped her fingers. “That was his name, Eric Hoover.”
“You had a coffin laying around,” I said. “I’ve never seen you sleep in a coffin. I didn’t even see one at Lee’s.”
“That’s ‘cause it’s out of fashion.” She giggled and sat down on the couch. A cloud of dust rose around her. “I stole the coffin from a vampire named Deveraux. At least that’s what he called himself. Lee granted him sanctuary for a couple of years. The guy was a real poser. He wore these goofy outfits, puffy pirate shirts from, like, the 1700s, or something. Except he wasn’t really that old. And, he slept in a coffin. He never missed a party and we couldn’t stand him. So one time, Lee sent me to steal his coffin.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“I used to keep it in Lee’s room, which was a pretty cool place to hang out, until that bitch Karla took over,” she said.
“I remember her,” I said.
“She’s another one who takes movies and books way too seriously,” she said. “Anyway, Deveraux was long gone by this point. I snuck back into Lee’s place and stole the coffin for a second time. It was my trophy, after all.”
“OK, but-” I said.
“Eric saw all the cash and thought I was like, some drug dealer’s girl or something. He didn’t get it. He was super condescending, until I got mad.” She showed me what she showed the suit all those years ago. Her jaw unhinged, making way for extra rows of jagged teeth. Her fingertips split into talons and her eyes smoldered, almost red. Then she shifted back to normal, like it never happened. “He wasn’t even scared. He just stared at me with his coked out eyes bulging while the wheels turned in his greedy head.”
“I bet he wanted to be a vampire,” I said.
“That and a bunch of other shit,” she said. “He had a lot of bad ideas. Most of ‘em were about how we were going to be really rich. He knew all these rich fuckers. People who already have too much power. He was going to sell them my blood. Those kind of people are already driven to take as much as they can get away with.”
I eased a VHS tape out the middle of a stack. The tape came in a huge, white plastic box and weighed a ton. Over-sized chrome screws held the plastic housing together. A sticker boasted that this new release for 1984, could be yours to own for 119 dollars.
“Damn.” I put the tape on a pile of Newsweeks. Heather inhaled sharply.
“First I had Eric set up a fund that pays out every month,” she said. “So I get a whole bunch of money each month, as long as the banks stay in business.”
“So you’re set,” I said.
“You ever do coke, Mike?” she said.
“What? Uh no,” I said. “I used to drink a lot of energy drinks. I had trouble sleeping for a while. So, I stopped.”
“Wow, that’s really fucking lame.” She stood up and walked over to a magazine stack. “Anyway, when people do coke they get really, really bad ideas and go out of their way to realize them. I knew he was cheating me. I might have let it go, but Eric was so obnoxious, acting like he was the first person in history to think of charging people to become vampires.”
“Since I was still friends with Lee, I told him about Eric and his yuppie friends. Lee was pissed. He hates the upper classes. He went on a rant about how they all profited while he killed working-class Frenchmen in the mud, or something. I had Eric and his friends wait for me in his office. Lee showed up with a couple of MP-5s, just like old times. MP-5s are pretty cool.” Heather mimed holding a gun. “You can turn the safety to this like, three bullet icon thing and it fires, like three times every time you pull the trigger.”
“Where do you guys get all that stuff,” I said. “MP-5s were never legal to just buy in a gun store.”
“Oh no, I never thought about that. We might get in trouble.” Heather rolled her eyes. “You’ll have to help me turn in all my shit at the nearest police station.”
I tapped a stack of vintage Vanity Fairs with my boot. The stack teetered and crashed to the floor, raising another cloud of dust.
Heather cut her eyes at me. “You’re getting brave.” She descended on the pile of magazines and re-stacked them. It took her about ten seconds to put everything the way it was stacked in back in 1990.
“We steal stuff, or buy it, which is a lot less work. Lee got those M60s you saw from a crooked National Guard sergeant. He sold out his country for a gym-bag full of twenties. I mean, we could have been Russians for all he knew. My dad would have killed him in Vietnam.” She stra
ightened out the stack. “Shit, I would have killed him, but Lee said he was too useful.”
“OK.” I looked at my phone and realized I was going to spend the day sleeping in Heather’s creepy, dusty house. “So, you and Lee killed Eric and his buddies.”
Heather continued her story and the dead CRT TV flickered to life. I saw early Nineties Heather with short, wet-look hair. Lee wore a suit, with ammo pouches ready to go. They kissed and he handed Heather an MP-5. They walked down a hall. Lee casually knocked classy modern art pieces over. A red-eyed receptionist looked up at them from a fresh line of coke.
“The bitch didn’t even question the guns, she was so high,” Heather said, from far away. “Are you looking at my broken TV? You can see it again, can’t you? Cool.”
I couldn’t speak. I stayed fixed on the TV, while Heather continued.
On the screen, Heather threw the receptionist across the room. Lee kicked the doors to a conference room open. Heather was right behind him. Eric and his yuppie friends never had a chance. Lee screamed something in German and they opened fire. One of the yuppies managed to get a MAC-10 out of his briefcase. He cocked the bolt, then Heather sent a three round burst into his head. Pieces flesh and skull hit the wall behind him. The man at the head of the table, Eric I guessed, stood alone.
Heather raised her MP-5. Lee shot past her, a blur that hit Eric and slammed him into the wall. Blood exploded everywhere. Lee stepped back, without a drop on his suit. A bloody ruin of bone and butchered flesh slid down the wall. Heather and Lee laughed hysterically.
The assistant peeked her head in the door. She saw Heather watching Lee paint Spanish words on the wall with her boss’s blood. She wiped her mouth and made her move. Heather spun around in time to see her grab a briefcase full of cocaine from the table.
“The bitch thought she could get away.” Heather’s voice came back.
Heather re-loaded and followed the assistant into the hall. She was still laughing when she fired. Her burst hit the briefcase and sent a cloud of cocaine across the hall. The second burst hit the woman right between the shoulder-pads.
