Hex-Rated
Page 26
“Edgar.”
CHAPTER 42
“DON’T SOIL YOURSELF, JAMES. I WON’T BE HERE LONG.”
I remembered to breathe. “What do you want?”
“Two things. First, thank you for dispatching Tabitha.”
“You’re thanking me for killing your kid? Jesus, Edgar.”
He sighed. In the mirror, he was looking past me and into the night. “You broke her some, dear apprentice. But kill? My blood is stronger than a bullet. Though, I must applaud you for not becoming a casualty yourself using that old standby. Catching a bullet, how low. Still, she’ll be . . . unable to cause much of a fuss for a bit. Cheers.”
I ran the key’s jagged teeth across my index finger. “The funeral. That was to flush her out. That’s why you agreed to my terms. To be free of you.”
He grunted. “The morphine is making you simple. Have I ever done anything for just one reason?”
“Never. You always have a dozen angles.”
“You exaggerate. But that brings me back to the second thing. With Tabitha gone, for now, and my death established, I’d like to renegotiate my offer.”
“No.”
“Don’t be hasty.”
“No.”
“What are you going to do, James? Waltz back to that whorehouse?”
“Burlesque show, Edgar. I live at a Burlesque show.”
“And scrounge for coins in the sad cases of the poor. You escaped those roots, my dear apprentice. You hated them in Oakland, and this running back to poverty is tired and old as a saint’s chopped finger. I opened you to worlds unknown, James. To powers that could thrill you, make you far more powerful than a taster of magic and catcher of bullets. I made you capable of great things. Thus, I am offering you a better deal. Come with me as I—”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard the best part—”
“No.”
“Stop acting like a child.”
My anger ripped through the drugs. “No. The answer is no. It is always no. You don’t care about the peasants of the world? Great, terrific, boy-howdy. But I do. You don’t give a shit what happens to the little guy and gal? Fantastic and resplendent. I do. You want to fight other aristocrats and elites to save the universe or for your own ego, have fun, but I don’t give a shit. Someone has to fight for the underclass, Edgar, the folks who come where I come from. Might as well be me. I don’t want to be your apprentice, your heir, or your goddamn sidekick or prodigy. I said no, I mean no. It will be no until the end of time when death eats its own skull. We made a deal, Edgar. I would give the world your death, and you would give me my freedom. Or is your word as full of shit as you are?”
Silence held us for about three heartbeats, and I felt the ground slip away from my ass. The starlight sharpened like daggers and Lilith melted away while red eyes glared in the rearview mirror that evaporated. “You dare speak to me like that? I could eat your spine for dinner if I wanted. I could rape that Filipino cunt who spurned you before your very eyes and make her beg for more while you watched and applauded my efforts. I could tear down the walls of reality in your mind until all that was left was the drooling mouth of a dying soul, hanging from a puppet string made his urethra until I killed it and resurrected it so that it could learn fresh suffering again. You are awaking a dragon with a toothpick. Press further, little puppet, and you will burn.”
The world snapped back to normal, though Edgar’s voice was a whisper. “You will come back to me, James. You’ll see. You’ll need me. And when you do, the price will be oh so very high. Face it, apprentice, no matter where you go, you’re mine.”
I exhaled, then looked behind me.
Shards of broken glass and the echo of his words in my ears was all that I found.
I awoke Lilith’s engine and stared at LA through her broken eye.
The drive home was quick, that burp between the late shift and the early birds that let me travel at good speed. The morphine wouldn’t last, so I stabbed the accelerator and roared through the city of angels. The wind through the open windshield tried to push the past away. It felt good, if useless.
I pulled into the Thump & Grind parking lot. Only one car left. Bee’s Wagoneer.
I walked through the backdoor. Bee’s office light was on, down the hall from my place. The locks were still on my door.
Bee stepped into the hall, then hit the light. I covered my eyes.
“Brimstone?” A sawed off shotgun was leveled at me. Her eyes calculated the amount of damage my face and body had taken since this morning. “What happened to you?”
“My client . . . turned out to be the problem.” I stumbled toward my office door. “I’ll get the rest of my rent tomorrow. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute.” I was on the floor, back against my door, muttering, “Just a minute,” when sleep blanketed me hard.
MUSIC WOKE ME. FROM OUTSIDE MY OFFICE DOOR, BASS AND FUZZY guitars were filling my head as the MC said “Dee Dee Lightful to the main stage! Dee Dee Lightful, your life is calling!”
I was on my couch. Moonlight cut through the shades and made the world black and white. A thick and fluffy pillow rested upon my head, and a wool blanket was draped across my chest. Two things I didn’t own. Each smelled like Bee: Pall Malls and Chanel No. Zero, the knock off you get in Tijuana. My little rolling desk had a note taped to the agenda that was currently empty. I stood slow and moved slower.
The bar fridge opened with supreme effort, but I scoffed out two ice cubs and plunked them into a highball glass. From the top of an empty filing cabinet that came with the room I grabbed the Dubonnet with both gauzed hands and poured myself a tall, dark treat that had been denied me all day.
Like a baby with its bottle, I slipped the cool sweetness and tasted every wound as it cried through my dank clothing. The booze gave me enough strength to sit at my desk and read the note.
It was stuck on what I presumed was today’s date, forty-eight hours after I’d buried Edgar and discovered Nico. Bee’s immaculate script was a delight to the eyes.
We’re good this month. Burn this after reading. And get pretty again. Ugly is bad for business. QB
I lit a match from a stray pack and sent the note to Ashville. I sipped my baby glass and enjoyed the dirty guitars coming through the stage, too tired to put on something better like Django or Dorsey or Ellington.
The phone rang and I dropped the glass across my lap, pain squeezing my sore balls like a nutcracker. Fear prickled my nerves as I reached for the receiver. “The Odd Job Squad,” I grunted, pulling the wet glass from my lap. “Want the best? We’re up to the test!”
“Hi . . . my name is Mandy. I’m a friend of Maxine’s?”
“Is there anything I can do,” Maxine had asked.
“She said you help people. Help people with . . . weird problems? Because, well, my boyfriend’s in trouble, but not bad trouble, just weird trouble, you know? But . . . oh God, I can’t even say. This is so weird.”
“Yes,” you’d said. “There is.”
I licked the sweetness from my fingers until it was clean, grabbed a ballpoint pen from a tin cup. “My dear,” I said. “Weird is my specialty.”
About the Author
JASON RIDLER is a writer, improv actor, historian, and author of the Brimstone Files for Night Shade Books. He’s written numerous crime and horror novels, including A Triumph for Sakura, Blood and Sawdust, and the Spar Battersea Thrillers. He has published over sixty-five stories in venues such as The Big Click, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Out of the Gutter, and writes the column FXXK WRITING! for Flash Fiction Online. He also writes and performs sketch comedy and improv in the San Francisco Bay Area. A former punk rock musician and cemetery groundskeeper, Mr. Ridler holds a Ph.D. in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada.
Table of Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
C
HAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
About the Author