Curse of the Gianes

by AM Riley

  “No,” he said. “No… no sex. I…I said.” The finger withdrew and he sighed with relief. Then the undeniable feel of a thick cockhead at his entrance.

  “No!” said Seamus yanking at his restraints. “No! Marmalade. Marmalade.”

  The hissing at his ear again, now lips on his neck, those sharp, sharp teeth. The man was biting him! And Seamus started screaming in earnest.

  “Leave him, worm!”

  Voices behind him. Masculine voices. There was a great deal of bashing and clattering and Scarlet was pulled away from him. Seamus jerked helplessly at his bindings, trying to twist his head around to see. Worrying about too many things, Riley’s handgun in the crumpled clothing on the floor and who might be in the room, being the primary concerns. If the NYPD had come to his rescue, Seamus hoped somebody would shoot him.

  Cool hands untied the bindings at his ankles and legs before whoever had freed him was wrestled away again. Seamus spun around, going to one knee and diving for his gun all in one motion.

  “Hold it right there!” He yelled at the mass of struggling bodies there in the room.

  In the wake of his whipping, Seamus’ hands holding the gun were shaking too hard to aim. His eyes burned with tears and the lights, as he tried to register what was happening.

  A big man, wild rock star hair and a black trench coat knelt over a brown-skinned slug, who appeared to be wearing Master Scarlet’s leather Masters gear.

  “Step away from him. Everybody step back,” commanded Seamus, his voice high pitched and breaking, but the habitual authority ringing through it. The big guy stood slowly, looking up at Seamus and Seamus felt the rush of adrenaline. The intense moment of slow clarity that comes with a real emergency. “Sonofabitch,” he said, everything he had going into holding his gun steady. “Fuckingsonofabitch.” It was the guy he’d seen at the scene. The fucking ‘cartoon character’ everybody’d thought he hallucinated when he’d seen his partner gunned down.

  Seamus waved the muzzle of his gun to indicate a spot several feet away. “Farther away. And you.” He glared at them both, eyes darting back and forth, not even daring to blink. The tall blond who stood on the other side of Master Scarlet’s inert ‘body’, a long knife in one hand, blood splattered across his mauve overcoat. “Do not breathe. Lay that knife down gently.”

  Seamus waited until the man had done as he asked then fumbled through his slacks and found his cell phone.

  “Let me explain,” said the blond.

  “Shut up.” Seamus flipped open his phone.

  Blond guy’s eyes were enormous. He exchanged a look with trench coat guy. “He sees us.”

  Little slow, thought Seamus. But the slow guys were sometimes more dangerous. They did stupid things. “Kick that knife over here,” he said, pressing the ‘1’ on his speed dial.

  “I’m Maeebsef,” said the blond. He toed the knife and it flopped and tumbled across the plush carpet toward Seamus. “This is O’Grady.”

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Seamus growled at his phone. This roving service was slower than hell. Blond and Trench coat guy exchanged looks again and stared at him again. The one who called himself ‘Maeebsef’ looked up and down Seamus’ torso, his eyes lingering in all the wrong places. Seamus cursed under his breath and nestled the phone in the crook of his ear so that he could pick up his slacks and still keep the gun trained on the two.

  “You know,” said Maeebsef, watching with a concerned expression as Seamus dragged his slacks up over his hips. “You probably don’t want to tell anybody about this.”

  “No. You don’t want me to tell anybody about this.” Seamus could hear the phone ringing now.

  “O’Grady,” said Maeebsef. “This is going to make it worse.”

  The one apparently called O’Grady nodded. “Hang up the phone Seamus,” he said.

  Seamus was already so nervy he almost dropped said phone. How the hell did the suspect know his name? “Shut up,” he said. The suspects looked at each other again. And then they disappeared.

  Seamus felt a spike of shock hit the top of his skull. Only his training kept him from dropping the phone or the gun. Distantly, he heard the switchboard pick up the line. Stupidly, mindlessly, he disconnected.

  Then he just stood there wondering what the fuck was wrong with him. Both suspects and the apparent ‘victim’ were gone. He looked down at himself. His chest was naked. His dick still filling his slacks. Funny thing about adrenaline it just made him harder. His trouser legs pooled over blood-spattered feet. The horse to which he’d been bound was knocked over, restraints hanging. He was missing one Master. He wondered how much of this was real, how much he had imagined.

  Fuck. They’d have him on Psych Watch until he retired.

  His phone rang. Of course it did. He’d hung up on dispatch. “Yeah,” he growled into it, thinking fast. “I … damn I’m sorry. I hit the wrong button.”

  “Code Four?” the operator’s mechanical voice sounded just a tad peeved.

  “Code Four. I’m okay. Sorry.” He disconnected. Surveyed the room. Aside from his own bloody body, there was no evidence that what he had just experienced had been real at all. Except, there was a curved ritualistic looking knife on the carpet and it seemed to be hilt deep in blood.

  Seamus spun around, gun up, barrel spanning the room. Which was still empty. Moving quickly again, Seamus slid his t-shirt and sweater over his head without setting his gun down. He was toeing on his shoes, back to a corner, trying to formulate some sort of explanation for the missing Master Scarlet. If indeed there was a Master Scarlet. If, in actuality, any of this had happened or Seamus was happily sleeping off a bender in his apartment.

  “How is it that he could see us, O’Grady?”

  Seamus shrieked. Which entirely pissed him off. Blondie stood there again, in another corner, staring. He seemed as surprised as Seamus to find himself back in the room. Seamus pointed the gun straight at him and considered that shooting an unarmed hallucination probably wasn’t considered unlawful force.

  Maeebsef regarded the gun. “Your weapon is useless.”

  Seamus laughed. It was meant to sound derisive, but it came out a little too high and unsteady. “You sound like a bad movie about aliens.”

  Maeebsef shrugged.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “I am Maeebsef of the Gianes. And this,” the guy waved at trenchcoat guy. “Is your clan Banshee, O’Grady.”

  Seamus did not giggle inanely, because that would have been too awful. So that sound he’d just heard? Not him. “O’Grady?” he said. “First name?”

  O’Grady had creepy eyes. They were dark and enormous and seemed to have no pupils. Like black marbles. The trench coat was filthy and wrinkled like the guy slept in it.

  “You may call me O’Grady.”

  “I may call you a suspect in the homicide of a police officer, asshole. So you may tell me your name, address, where the hell Master Scarlet is, and how the fuck you got into this room.”

  “I am O’Grady of the clan O’Grady. I dwell where the clan dwells. I do not know a Master Scarlet, but I entered this room because you were about to be devoured by a Worm,” said O’Grady, like it was the most natural statement in the world. “A Larvae. They are parasitic Folk who take the form of humans in order to entice their victims. I’m sorry we didn’t arrive sooner.”

  “Yeah,” said Seamus sarcastically. “I was wonderin’ where you were.”

  O’Grady looked grim. “I allowed personal business to distract me.” He shot a weird look at the blond guy, who cast his eyes away. “I wasn’t paying close enough attention to the harbingers.

  Of course. Pretty men all dressed in shades of purple always distracted a guy from the harbingers. Seamus felt a weird grin opening on his face and thought of all the possible retorts he could come up with. Nah, it was too easy. “Name’s Brady,” he said instead. “Not of the clan O’Grady.”

  O’Grady nodded. “Many of the clan changed their surnames to Brady when the
y came to the Americas.”

  Seamus shifted his stance a bit. Moving his gun from his right to his left hand. It helped to be ambidextrous. He closed one eye. Opened that eye and closed the other. Nope, they were still there.

  “What’d you do with the body?”

  “Body?” O’Grady tipped his head. “Oh. The Worm. We convinced her that she should… move on.”

  “She?”

  “Larvae are female.”

  Seamus chuckled. “I think you’re wrong.”

  “That was not a penis that you felt about to enter you. She was about to thrust her appendage into you to devour your organs,” said Maeebsef cheerily. He smiled when Seamus stared at him.

  Obviously these guys were on some kind of crack. Seamus focused on the principle issue. “So. Whatever, your saying … isn’t dead?”

  Maeebsef shook his head, as at a foolish child. “She can’t be dead.”

  “Show me.” Seamus waved his gun at Maeebsef. “Show me this ‘not dead’ chick dude whatever, and you can go home and call this guy’s lawyer.” He waved his pistol at O’Grady again. Him, he had legit business with. This other stuff, he’d have to let go. Because who the fuck would believe him anyway? Man. Pearl would be famous after he wrote Seamus up in his psych journals.

  The two guys exchanged glances again. “Very well,” said O’Grady.

  “You might want to, um, close your eyes or something,” suggested Maeebsef. He smiled, and fuck his eyes were almost purple, weren’t they? “This can be disorienting.”

  Right. Sure. Like he was gonna fall for that. “Hit me,” said Seamus. “Let me worry about… whoa.”

  The air seemed to inhale lightly and they disappeared again. Seamus had barely had time to blink, though, when the air bucked, shimmered and they reappeared along with Master Scarlet, who stood there in full regalia, slapping the riding crop in his palm.

  Seamus felt the room tilt with full on vertigo. He took a step back but kept his gun up. “Hello, dahling,” Master Scarlet said in a high, feminine voice. “Feeling better?”

  Seamus swallowed. “You okay?”

  Scarlet cast Maeebsef a narrow, hostile look. “As well as can be expected.”

  “He hurt you? You wanna press charges or anything?”

  “He stole from me.”

  “Yeah? What’d he take?”

  Scarlet licked her lips and smiled at him with that mouth full of ugly shark teeth. “My dinner.”

  And that was it. Seamus could feel the laughter coming up from his diaphragm and he lowered the gun just to be safe. Because he was gonna lose it. He clapped his hands on his knees and leaned over, howling with laughter.

  “O’Grady?” Maeebsef flipped that long hair back over his shoulder, a worried look on his face.

  O’Grady scrubbed at his face with both hands. “I need a drink,” he said.

  ”Get out of here, Worm” And just like that, Scarlet vanished again.

  Seamus hooted and slapped his knees.

  O’Grady growled.

  “If you want a drink, will you be going to O’Neills Bar and Grill?” asked Maeebsef, worry in his voice.

  “Aye.” O’Grady frowned at Seamus who was giggling.

  “Daer said that he is there.” Maeebsef leaned against the shattered horse, arms crossed, addressing the other as if Seamus was not even in the room.

  O’Grady scrubbed at that mop of inhumanly raggedy hair. His image wavered before Seamus’ eyes, as if he were made of smoke. “We need to speak to the laddie. We may as well go to O’Neill’s and accost him there,” he said finally.

  Seamus snorted. When they both looked at him, he rubbed his nose and grinned. “Sorry.” Waving his gun, encouragingly.

  “Well,” Maeebseff looked around the room. “We finished here?”

  O’Grady sighed. “I suppose.”

  “No,” said Seamus, loudly. “You are coming down to the …”

  And they were gone again.

  ***

  “O’Neill’s Bar and Grill”. Seamus stood in front of the restaurant, considering his next move.

  The place was a tourist trap. One of those places Seamus wouldn’t have been caught dead in. And that was the point. He’d never been in there so he had no idea what to expect when he got inside.

  He walked around to the corner of the building and peered down the two-foot wide gap he found there. A smaller awning-ed door, narrower, shorter and lit with a weirdly iridescent light about twenty feet down.

  Must be the back entrance. Always a better way to enter an unknown establishment. Seamus padded quietly to the door, pushing it open slowly with one toe, then peered around the corner.

  From here he could see a wedge of the bar. No one looking his way, at least. The dimly lit place seemed peopled with Broadway theater people after hours, he thought. Weird colored wigs and costumes. He sauntered slowly around the corner.

  There were a lot more people here than he’d thought were possible from the outside. And the bar was huge, lit with gold lights and running the full length of the room. Several bar maids in shimmering leotards with spiky fluorescent colored hair moving up and down so fast he’d swear they were flying.

  A few more steps and one of the patrons looked up at him. Did a double take.

  “Evenin’” said Seamus.

  Sometimes citizens can just smell a cop. Riley used to say it and Seamus believed him. He didn’t know what it was but people could tell a man was police and they’d just freeze up when he walked by.

  This was different. Everybody, absolutely everybody, in the place was staring at him. Some even stood, chairs legs screeching against the floor, to follow his journey across the room. It was like that fucking stupid stock brokerage house commercial.

  He muscled on up to the bar. Getting himself wedged nice and tight in a corner where his back was to a wall and he could see all those faces turned toward him. He gave them all a little salute.

  “Whattayagot honey?” he asked the bartender, squinting at her sideways.

  The bartender had pink hair. And pointed ears. Weird. But Seamus was a cop in New York City. He’d seen weirder.

  “Whiskey,” said the barkeep in a silvery bell like voice.

  Seamus squinted at her. “Irish?”

  “What else is there?” she asked. God. Her voice was so high and intense it hurt Seamus head. He shook it hard.

  “Whiskey it is, then.” She smiled at him and he’d swear her eyes glittered.

  “The Whiskey here can be a little strong for strangers,” said a very, very short old guy who perched a couple of stools down. His ears were pointed too. Was this some new punk thing, Seamus wondered? Like lip piercing? “Perhaps you’d prefer bourbon,” and the short guy lifted an ornately carved silver flask, offering it to Seamus.

  Oh right, like he was gonna drink some e-laced whatever from a stranger.

  “No thanks.”

  The little guy didn’t seem to take offense. “I am Buzzimess,” he said, sketching a little bow there on the barstool. “The gnome.”

  Right, so this was some kind of theater group. Well, they could be cliquish, that might explain the hostile looks he was still getting. Seamus pulled the much folded Xerox of O’Grady’s likeness from his inner pocket. “Pleased ta make yer acquaintance, Buzzimess. You know this guy?”

  Buzzimess head jerked back in surprise and his eyes rolled up to stare at Seamus. Oh, yeah, he’d scored, thought Seamus, when a hard hand slapped down on his shoulder. “Joseph?”

  Seamus whirled and swung.

  Whoever it was ducked down and away as astutely as a martial arts stunt man. He bobbed up, out of arms reach, tossing hair his hair back. “Oh I beg your pardon.” His face was flushed. Grass green eyes in white skin. Curly white-blond hair. He stopped bouncing and smiled charmingly, merry crinkles appearing at the corner of those eyes.

  “I mistook you for someone,” said the man. His eyes traveled over Seamus’ features in a far-too intimate manner. He was tall and gorgeou
s in that Swedish Gay calendar model way. He wore unbelievably tight brown leather pants, suede boots, and a sex-on-a-stick sheer tunic style shirt. Seamus knew in one hungry glance what this guy was all about.

  “Sorry, hon, but I gotta tell you I’m a cop,” said Seamus. “And I ain’t interested in what yer peddlin’”

  He turned back to question his ‘gnome’ but the guy had vanished.

  “Fuck.” Seamus jumped up from his bar stool, scanning the place.

  The guy stepped into his line of sight and held out a big hand. The fingers were long, the nails immaculately manicured. “I am Lyre.”