At the snap of her fingers, Joakim smiled. He turned his back on her, pleased with his “errand girl.” Vivian’s voice rang out in anger.
“You’re in debt to me now, you know that?”
Joakim fell still, gilded in the stark light of the bonfire.
A twinge of unease tarnished Joakim’s boyish smile. However, that same anxiety vanished just as quickly as it peeked through.
“Yes. I will show you to the outskirts.”
FOUR
Vivian emerged from the metro as a train howled obscurely in the distance. She almost expected the tunnel to collapse behind her in a wave of concrete shambles. Joakim had faded into the darkness long before Vivian tasted fresh air. She reared up from the stairs to greet a city wreathed in humid fog.
Nostalgia ached in her chest as she scanned the vacant lot. She left the mouth of the tunnel as the churning wind tugged her forward.
Even at the age of eighteen, Vivian felt trapped in a child’s body, reborn into this unforgiving world. Except the man and woman who birthed her were absent now, and in their place was a void of fragile independence.
She relied so much on her parents as she braved this emotional cyclone more commonly known as life. They helped her register for classes, taught her how to drive, and provided a dry roof over her head.
That security had been stripped away just like the clothes from her body when she worked at the gentlemen’s club.
But not even those perverse times could match the vulnerability she felt as she entered the main plaza. This place stirred feelings in her that remained dormant since childhood: ignorance that shielded her from danger.
She palpably felt an outside presence that invaded this place and claimed dominion over the ruins. Condemned houses broke the skyline like jagged nails.
The district looked like a modern Gomorrah scorched by divine fury. Vacant shops lined the streets.
Vivian knew the secrets of this district, a reality that too many denizens shied away from. All the lies concocted by the media could never hide the tragic past that smoldered here. Her eyes fell on a child’s mangled bicycle.
Twelve years ago, racial riots drove hundreds of Chinese immigrants from this poor district. Chaos spilled across the district heavily populated by disenfranchised immigrants, resulting in the deaths of twelve armed officers and more than 200 civilians. The area had virtually been quarantined by the government and thus could only be accessed by foot.
Renovations had been scheduled to begin last fall but the city council lacked the funds—or more appropriately, courage—to move forward.
Vivian strolled past the disgraced cathedral, its Gothic façade bruised by Molotov cocktails. Even the hospital had been tarnished by the violence that oozed through the impoverished ghettos. Cartridges from assault rifles littered the streets, giving silent testimony to the martyrs who fell to their knees in puddles of blood and tears only twelve years ago.
She wondered how the police felt as they walked among the site of an ethnic massacre. How many of them had donned riot gear and faced a disparaged population in the bondage of poverty? How many defected when they saw the charred bodies of children being disposed of in the sewers before the camera crews arrived?
Not enough, she thought, watching the wind tug on the bicycle wheels. To this day, she still felt the sting of prejudice. She would never shed the label as a “Chink” or “Mulan” in the eyes of the older generation. She was an unwelcome immigrant and no amount of assimilation could cleanse her of that stigma.
Suddenly, she remembered the night that violence washed ashore in her neighborhood like a disease-ridden tide. Riot police had swarmed their residence, mistaking it for the lair of a militant activist.
The stench of napalm still wafted up from the streets, eliciting unwelcome memories. She could still picture the burning liquid adhering to the wallpaper in her bedroom.
She woke to the sound of screaming as a military unit kicked down the doors. Vivian tried to scurry under the blankets before her bedroom door exploded. A loud pop preceded a flash, dissolving her vision and hearing. Silence replaced the discordant bellows of federal intruders.
When her vision cleared, incendiary chemicals were eating away at her bedroom walls. Her belly dragged along the carpet as agents pried her from bed, impervious to her screams. She tried to dig her nails into the carpet but she only succeeded in chafing her fingertips raw. Her charring bedroom recoiled into the shadows as it stretched further down the twisted hall.
“Get away!” she cried, slinging her arms around the staircase banister. They plucked her from the handrail like a bug. Mementos on the wall smoldered in the lustful embrace of the flames. If she closed her eyes and listened intently, she could almost hear the aching walls cry out for mercy.
Her small body landed in the back of a van, where she peered into the frightened eyes of her mother and father. She dove into their arms as the engine roared to life and the vehicle careened around the bend.
* * *
Vivian quickly banished the memory. That night would remain painfully embedded in her mind, and she would always retreat to memories of the safe place in mother’s arms.
Pushing through the metal gates, she traipsed through the playground, carried aloft by the breeze. The wind howled through the plastic mazes, whispering to Vivian of the things that once were.
During the riots, many playground apparatuses had been vandalized by thieves in search of makeshift weapons. Her eyes flickered across a blunt length of metal on the pavement, an unnerving addition to a children’s play area. Feeling vulnerable, she seized it.
Tongues of fog flicked across the park in a tide of lurid grace. This playground was floating in limbo, a fragment of history that many residents longed to erase from their guilty consciences.
A sudden cry rang out and pierced her heart. Something was hobbling near the rusted carousel. Vivian clutched the crowbar to her chest.
What is that thing? Her imagination flirted with the grotesque possibilities. It didn’t move like a human and its body certainly didn’t resemble one either.
Vivian held her breath, not making a peep as the dark shape limped away. Its spindly legs jerked through the mist as it crept beyond the forsaken playground. Vivian knew better than to pursue it. At least, she should have.
It retched vilely as it dragged itself further down the street.
Vivian peeked from behind a rundown car as she mirrored its path. Finally, she caught sight of the creature. An emaciated, black dog limped along the road. Under the cloak of fog, it hobbled into an apartment complex. Vivian summoned her last ounce of courage and dashed across the streets.
She looked at the words etched above the entrance.
Grigorshire Palace.
It was an ironic title given the squalor that ultimately sealed its demise.
Nonetheless, the haunting entrance called to her. Vivian quietly swept inside, as there was no door to keep her out. A parasitic beauty fed on the desolation within. Her face puckered as a cinnamon-smelling musk tickled her nose.
The front desk lay in ruins, devoid of a receptionist. She couldn’t resist the impulse to rap the bell.
Her hand froze the moment she saw what awaited her beyond the lobby.
Tumors of mold sizzled in the corners of the ceiling. Vivian’s jaws snapped shut, suddenly afraid to taste the air. She almost thought she saw it squirming, multiplying in fetid spasms.
Retreating from the webs of mold, she tore through the hall. Several flights of stairs later, her pace slowed to a crawl as the weight of Grigorshire Palace took its toll. A vexing presence infested this place, a feeling that shouldn’t even exist in the natural world. It gnawed at her heart, goading her onward with promises of repulsive things she never thought possible, abominations that would scar her mind and bring about enlightenment.
The walls groaned as if angered by her intrusion. Some of them sounded like voices, others like a thousand hungry jaws devouring meat. Maybe there w
ere rats in the walls, gorging on something.
She peeked inside one of the rooms that hadn’t been boarded up. A creaking nursery beckoned her inside. One door after the other, she stole a glimpse at the secrets of former tenants. Behind a rickety door, she found an abandoned painter’s studio. Jagged designs of black and red veined the central canvas. Other paintings were stained with crosses or shadowy faces with indistinguishable features. Paintbrushes lay in a tar-like puddle on the floor.
The same oceanic glow in the lobby tainted the third floor, pulsing to Vivian’s footsteps.
An orgy of cockroaches seethed on the windows, their scaled backs gleaming behind opaque curtains. A few would scatter to admit a sliver of sunlight, but the rustling of barbed legs would snuff out that light as quickly as it slipped through.
The sound of their greedy claws grew louder until it filled the crevices in her brain. Vivian clapped her hands over her ears. She had to escape this deranged labyrinth and its concert of horrors. She plodded down the hall and immediately thrust the door open.
The shriek of exploding metal greeted Vivian. She screamed as three blades swung toward her belly.
Not a sound echoed throughout Grigorshire.
Vivian sprawled on the floor, quivering in her sweat. The blades floated just above her, extending from the room like probing fingers. Dizzy with adrenaline, she climbed back to her feet. A body lay directly inside the room, splayed on the moldering carpet. She wanted to turn and run, but something compelled her to approach. This was the first time she had ever been this close to death.
Vivian glanced at the serrated blades rigged to the door and again at the cadaver steeped in blood. During the riots, militant tenants would sometimes hole up in their apartments and lie in wait for the police. They rigged booby traps to doors in hopes of killing those who tore apart their families.
This tenant had obviously succumbed to his own device. A rifle was positioned at the window within perfect view of the city square. During those weeks of racial tension, sniping proved the most common tactic for repelling the police.
The sight of that rifle evoked a memory she simply could not suppress.
She was transported to that moment twelve years ago when she landed in the back of the van. Vivian closed her eyes as she buried her face against her mother’s bosom. The engine rumbled as her home faded into the backdrop of torched cars and tendrils of smoke. Where were these faceless strangers transporting her family? To an internment camp?
A rancid stench hit the back of her throat, making her tongue fold against the roof her mouth. It invaded her sinuses, a smell nearly as sweet and acrid as charcoal. Burning flesh.
Through the saturating darkness, Vivian slowly reared up.
“Get down, Vivian!” Her mother lunged for her. Vivian gazed star-struck out the window as the devastation reeled by in a theatrical montage of slaughter and despair. “Vivian!”
Something black caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she turned. A dark vehicle was barreling down the rustic alley.
Vivian’s body flew through the air as a monstrous force slammed into the passenger’s compartment.
Sniper fire rained down on the van, tearing through the driver’s unarmored throat. Vivian cried out as the van veered onto the curb, bouncing violently before plowing into the front window of a shop.
“Down!” her father yelled, throwing himself on top of her like a live grenade.
Screaming glass showered the dead driver, drowning out the sound of their cries. Several minutes dragged on as Vivian huddled with her parents in the wreckage. The back of the van flung open to reveal five masked men toting assault rifles. Vivian shrank with a scream as they reached inside to haul her mother into the streets.
“Into the sewers!” one of the refugees barked.
She scratched at their fingers until her mother cupped her tear-stained face in her hands.
“Come with us now, Vivian!” she pleaded, staring into her daughter’s eyes. “The police will be back for us soon.”
Vivian pulled away, wondering what her parents had done to warrant this invasion of her home. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and wake up in bed, swaddled in blankets. Instead, she meekly nodded and scurried out of the van. Halfway down the street, Vivian lurched to a stop. The masked men were gathered around the sewer entrance, looking peculiarly at her and her parents. She jumped as gunfire blistered along the intersection. More police units had already swamped the streets to crush the onslaught of militants.
“Hurry!” Hands suddenly shunted her down the ladder, and her father scooped her up in his arms.
She could hear bullets spitting on the pavement as forces clashed on the streets above. A day and a night later, they crawled through the sewers to emerge onto the other side of the conflict.
Now if only she could escape from Grigorshire.
Half of the room above had sunken through the ceiling, dangling in a web of asbestos crystals and tendrils. A metal bed frame floated in that mesh.
Through that hole in the ceiling, fragile sunlight dabbed the floor.
Emotionally exhausted, Vivian toppled onto the mattress. The moment she landed, she bounced off with a startled cry.
“What the…?” Massaging her tailbone, Vivian stripped away the sheets only to find a grimy mattress stretched on a metal frame. Whatever stung her had been concealed inside. Kneeling down, she eyed a tear in the mattress. Despite her basest instincts, she reached inside until her fingertips brushed up against something cold and metallic.
Vivian swiftly plunged her arm inside up to her elbow. No… it can’t be…
Ammunition and handguns came spilling out with every thrust of her hand. A waterfall of rounds flowed between her fingers, pooling around her and slipping through the cracks in the floorboards. Something remained stuck deeper in the mattress, but it refused to slip free. Rabid with curiosity, Vivian dug through the stuffing. An AK-47 jerked out of the mesh and clattered onto the floor.
“It’s no wonder the tenant is dead. How could he sleep on this bed without setting off a gun?”
As Vivian crouched among the insurrectionist’s treasures, a metallic noise exploded behind her.
She spun toward the hall, half-expecting a corpse to be standing in the doorway, skewered by the bladed trap, staring lifelessly at her with glassy eyes. The blades hadn’t budged and the doorway remained empty. The guttural sound had come from the hall. Vivian almost seized one of the guns, but they likely wouldn’t save her. Twelve years of neglect could render any gun useless. Her fingers curled around the crowbar from the playground.
Vivian peered down the hallway and saw it instantly. One of the doors gaped ajar. A set of hooked blades swung lazily in the entrance, sunlight glancing off its reddened edges. An obscure shadow bled out of that room onto the carpet.
Her eyes rounded in awe.
“Shit!” She dashed through the hall, peeping over her shoulder to make sure nothing came slithering out of the room. She scurried down the stairs as that heightened sense of danger grew keener. Barreling through the cobwebs, she almost ran head on into a wall. Where there should have been an exit to the streets, there was only a sparse lobby enclosed by four walls without a single window. Vivian would be forced to backtrack to the eerie hall.
“Maybe not,” she whispered. With another fleeting glance at the top of the stairs, she approached the wall. It almost escaped her attention, but there was clearly a fissure someone tried to paint over. Beyond that crack, she spied a wooden surface worn with lines of age. Vivian scanned the lobby in search of another passage to the room beyond.
Better yet, she might find an alternative route to the streets.
The crowbar felt slick in her grasp as she hefted it over her shoulder. One defiant blow after the other chipped away at the drywall. At last, she hooked the crowbar in the gap and tugged. She grunted as the wall came loose, spilling across her feet and revealing the door within.
Vivian squeezed the handle u
ntil her fingers lost sensation. What could possibly await her beyond this wall?
Her foot barreled through the door, thrusting it open in defiance of her fear.
An empty room greeted Vivian. Yellowed walls surrounded her, stained with mold and bizarre, black streaks. Dim light rained down from above like a tearful morning shower. The floorboards hissed when she ventured a step into the asylum.
“What was this place used for?” she asked, but the walls did not reply.
A shadow draped across her.
Vivian slowly craned her head toward the ceiling.
The naked body floated above her, suspended by hooks. Her skin had been transformed into an elastic canvas with cruel barbs jutting from her limbs.
The cords were rigged to pipes, creating a web of torment. Hooks peeled her eyelids away from engorged eyes with microfilament wire anchored toward her spine.
The killer had anticipated every natural human reaction: screaming, shutting her eyes, lifting her hands to her face… and countered it with torture.
Vivian choked back her terror.
A red bruise glowed in the crook of the victim’s arm, where a needle had pierced her.
Adding horror to the offense, six gnarled hooks were sunken into her lips and tongue, rigged with wire stretched taut. The moment she cried out, her mouth would have been flayed wide open.
Her mouth was a crater of exposed muscle, an abyss emptied of screams. When Vivian saw where the other hooks were connected, her own screams poured forth.
FIVE
You cannot hurt me anymore.
Those glossy words stained the walls, immortalized in syrupy blood. The sight inevitably gave the police pause, taunting them from across the room. Only Nikolai approached with a scowl etched into his jaw.
He was familiar with the notorious handiwork of this killer, like a lover resentfully re-uniting with an ex.
“Did the victim write this in her own blood?” Vivian droned without emotion. She felt numb as the entire scene unfolded before her; police cutting down the body, the medical examiner collecting the corpse in its body bag chrysalis, forensic investigators gathering sample fluids from the floor. She had already given her statement to the police, but the words hardly felt like her own.
Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) Page 6
