by Ron Ripley
Blanche nodded her agreement, and they passed out of the kitchen and into the main hall. Ahead and to the right, David saw fresh drag marks. Unfortunately, they led into a wall, which meant the Keep had shifted since the intruder had entered.
David sighed, and Blanche said, “My turn anyway.”
He nodded and came to a stop. She did the same a few feet away, standing in the beam of the flashlight. Blanche held her arms out to either side and called out, “Emmanuel!”
The foundation of Borgin Keep shook.
“Emmanuel!” she said, raising her voice.
A cold wind raced through the hallway, knocked an unknown item down in the darkness beyond them, and then rushed back. At the edge of the flashlight’s beam, a pair of polished shoes appeared.
Emmanuel Borgin stepped forward, and David clenched his teeth to avoid a startled gasp.
The ghost was thin, face sunken in and eyes nothing more than white dots peering forth from cavernous sockets. When he smiled, gold and silver flashed, most of his teeth covered or filled. He wore a tailored, pinstriped suit that accentuated the thinness of his body. His nails were long, filed to points, and made his fingers look like the jointed legs of a spider. The man’s skin was as pale as paper and had no hair of which to speak. His ears were large, almost cartoonish in size.
But when they were added to the overall stature of the man, they only made David more fearful of him.
“Hello, Emmanuel,” Blanche said.
“Hello, Blanche,” Emmanuel replied.
David relaxed. It was always good when the dead man remembered who they were. The pistol, however, was still a comfort.
“Are you here to clean up?” Emmanuel asked with a chuckle.
Blanche nodded. “How many?”
“One,” Emmanuel answered. “Only one. And not much of him. Not nearly as much as when he came in.”
“What of the woman?” Blanche asked.
“She’s why there’s not much left of him,” Emmanuel grinned. “You’ll see. Three doors down on your right. I’ll tell the other guests to leave you be.”
Blanche nodded her thanks, and Emmanuel vanished. She glanced at David.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes,” David lied.
Together they walked to the third door, the lock clicking and the doorknob turning for them. Blanche pushed the door open, and they entered an elegant sitting room. All of the furniture looked as if it had recently been dusted, and there was the sweet scent of evergreens.
David shined the light around the room, stopping it on a bloody, naked body.
It had once been a man. Most of the skin was gone, as were all of his limbs. The face was ravaged, in some spots, the meat stripped from the bone. There were teeth marks and chunks of flesh missing from various parts of the torso. A few feet away was a pile of limbs.
From what David could see there were two pairs of legs and two pairs of arms. They had not been neatly removed. Instead, the edges were ragged, as if the limbs had been torn from their joints. The fetid stench of rotten meat filled the room, and David choked back a gag.
“Where is she?” David asked, surprised that he could still be horrified after all of his years with the Watchers.
“I don’t know,” Blanche said in an awed voice. “How has she even lasted this long?”
“I don’t care,” David answered, looking around the room. His skin crawled as he imagined her in some dark corner, limbless and mouth covered in red.
After several fearful moments, David asked, “Should we hunt her down?”
Blanche shook her head. “I think we’re lucky Emmanuel let us in. There’s something going on. If we travel too far from this room, we may end up like him. Food for her.”
Suddenly the man on the floor exhaled a long, broken breath and David swore in fear and surprise.
In shocked silence, he and Blanche watched as the body in front of them shuddered, tried to move, and then went still.
“He’s still alive,” Blanche whispered.
David didn’t speak. Instead, he reached into his pocket, pulled the pistol out and walked up to the wreck on the floor. He squeezed the trigger and put the tortured man out of his misery.
“Sometimes,” Blanche said, shrugging the bag off her shoulder, “sometimes, I hate this job.”
David nodded his agreement and put the pistol away. It was time to work.
Chapter 20: Watching 125 Berkley Street
They had been in the house since the package had been delivered to Shane Ryan. Emilio and Sadie had taken possession of the observation point the night prior to the delivery. The family who had lived there, a husband, wife, and three children, had been removed.
A team had disposed of the bodies.
In spite of the expert removal, or perhaps because of it, the house still stank. It was permeated with the foul odor of the cleaning products used to scour the crime scene. The team would return after the observation of 125 Berkley Street was finished. There was far too much trace evidence for anyone’s peace of mind.
Once the house was cleaned for the second time, Harlan would ensure the place was burned to the ground.
Emilio smiled. Harlan was efficient, thorough, and he left nothing to chance.
Looking around, Emilio’s eyes found a small, silver Zippo lighter on the mantle. He would pocket it before they left. A little memento of the job to add to his collection. In his apartment, Emilio had a significant number of items he had gathered over the years.
Sadie sat in a chair set several feet back from the picture window, a pair of binoculars at hand should something interesting occur across the street.
Emilio played a hand of solitaire. Neither Shane nor Frank Benedict had left, and the observation bordered on mind-numbing.
Both Emilio and Sadie were professionals if nothing else. They would remain in position until told to do otherwise. It was why they were assets, and why Harlan used them on the most difficult cases.
Sadie lifted the binoculars and examined Shane’s house with them.
“What do you want to eat tonight?” she asked, keeping her focus on the building.
“Chinese,” Emilio answered.
“You always want Chinese,” she complained.
“You always want Mexican,” he retorted.
She snorted a laugh. “Yeah. I do. Want to try something else?”
“No,” Emilio said, grinning.
The ringing of his cell phone cut off her reply.
Emilio took the phone out of his pocket and answered it. He didn’t have to look at the caller. There was only ever one.
“Hello, sir,” Emilio said.
Before he could listen to Harlan’s question, there was a knock on the front door.
Sadie put the binoculars down and looked at Emilio.
“Hold on, sir,” Emilio said. “Someone’s at the door.”
Without hanging up the phone, Emilio placed it face up on the table. He stood up, and moved to the door, stopping a few feet away and off to the right. “Who is it?”
No one answered.
“Who’s there?” Emilio demanded.
When he still didn’t receive a response, Emilio turned to Sadie, and their world collapsed.
Chapter 21: A Lack of Patience
In many ways, Harlan was a patient man. He had plotted his movements, his rise through the organization over decades. His accomplishments were many, and they had been meticulously planned each of them.
In other instances, Harlan had no patience whatsoever.
And regardless of his respect and admiration for the ruthless efficiency of Emilio and Sadie, Harlan hated to wait on subordinates.
Harlan had the phone on speaker, and he sat at his desk, hands folded into a steeple as he listened to the observation post in New Hampshire.
After Emilio’s second, unanswered query, Harlan was ready to hang up and call Sadie’s phone. Instead, he heard something extraordinary.
A fight.
/> Or rather, Harlan heard one side of a fight. That of Emilio and Sadie. Harlan heard curses, the rapid firing of suppressed weapons. The sickening sound of flesh being struck and of things breaking.
The fight was over in less than a minute, and Harlan found himself leaning over the desk, craning his neck to hear Emilio’s report.
Then the line went dead.
Frustrated, Harlan reached out to call them, but even as he did so, their phone line rang.
“What happened?” Harlan demanded when he answered the call.
A heartbeat later, someone spoke, and it wasn’t Emilio.
“Hello,” a man said. His voice was cold and brutal, and Harlan realized he had heard dead men with livelier tones.
Harlan hesitated, then he demanded, “Who is this?”
“I’m disappointed, Harlan,” the hard man said.
The hatred Harlan heard sent a chill down his spine.
“Who is this?” Harlan repeated, and he hated the hint of weakness in his own words.
“You sent me my friend’s head.”
“Shane,” Harlan said, surprised. He sat down hard in his chair. “Shane Ryan.”
“Yes,” Shane said.
“I told you what I’d do,” Harlan said.
“Shut up,” Shane snapped, and Harlan was surprised to find that he did.
“I have two of your people here,” Shane continued. “And it is not going to end well for them.”
Harlan’s heart began to hammer a mad beat in his chest.
“I’ll kill a dozen of yours for mine,” Harlan spat.
“Sure you will,” Shane said. “I’ve got big shoulders, though, Harlan. I’ll carry that weight. I’ll carry it until I go to my own grave.”
Harlan found it hard to breathe.
“I have a number for you now,” Shane said. “I’m betting you won’t have it changed. Too much effort. Too many people you’d have to reach out to. I’m not sure if I know exactly where you are, but I will. Soon enough. Lisbeth’s even told me about a place.”
“Liar!” Harlan hissed. “She’s dead!”
Shane laughed. A sound reminiscent of steel being dragged through broken glass.
“That, she is,” Shane agreed. “It doesn’t mean she can’t answer questions. Or tell me things she’d rather not.”
Harlan snatched up the receiver and screamed into it, “You lie!”
“Think of it,” Shane said, his voice dropping to a whisper, forcing Harlan to press the phone to his ear. “Me, with a captive who knows far too much. Think of the damage I did when I didn’t know who you were. Consider what I’ll be able to do now. All of those places I can destroy. All of your plans shattered.”
“You can’t,” Harlan seethed. “I won’t let you. We’ll stop you. I will come to your house and gut you like a fish!”
“Good luck with that, Harlan,” Shane said.
Harlan heard someone else speak in the background, and he knew it was Frank Benedict.
“What does Frank think of this little plan of yours?” Harlan demanded. “You can tell him I’ll be going after his cousin. The little one who lives in Delaware.”
Shane chuckled, the sound abrasive. “Funny thing about that. Turns out our Frank is a little more devious than even I thought. He doesn’t have any family. Pleasant lies and falsehoods spread to ease the minds of others. His family died years ago. You don’t have any leverage there.”
“I’m going to kill you,” Harlan promised.
“There’s always the chance that you could,” Shane said, his voice suddenly pleasant. “But here’s a question. Do you know this sound?”
There was a soft, metallic click on the other end.
Harlan straightened up in his chair.
He did know the sound.
“Are you going to torture them?” Harlan asked, a grin spreading across his face.
“God, no,” Shane said with a chuckle. “These two are professionals. Anyone can see that.”
The soft, muffled cough of a suppressor traveled across the phone lines. A thump, the unmistakable sound of a body hitting the floor, followed.
“That would be the female,” Shane said. “Whoever she was. And you always kill the females first. Do you know why, Harlan?”
Harlan couldn’t answer. He was too surprised. Shane’s action was a shock, unexpected. Far more brutal than Harlan had believed the man was capable of.
“Harlan!” Shane snapped.
“What?” Harlan spat back.
“Do you know why you kill the females first?” Shane asked.
“Why?” Harlan asked, genuinely curious.
“Because they’re the most dangerous,” Shane explained. “They’ve worked the hardest.”
Harlan shook his head. He wanted to say something witty, a cutting statement that would remind Shane of where he stood in the natural order of things.
Nothing came to mind.
“Now,” Shane said, “if you’ll excuse me, I have to speak with your other employee.”
Harlan heard Shane walk away from the phone, and then the distinctive sound of a pistol being cocked.
Chapter 22: Playing the Hand
David and Blanche stood in the kitchen of Borgin Keep. She held the flashlight while he double checked the knots on the plastic bags. They had gathered up the severed limbs and secured the torso of the intruder.
David didn’t feel well. For the first time, what he had seen had sickened him. He was nearing retirement age, and according to the records kept by the Watchers, he would be able to enjoy a significant pension. The idea of sitting in a small house down in the Florida Keys and whiling away the hours made him smile. David had waded in blood for the organization, and he deserved retirement.
“What are you grinning about?” Blanche asked.
David chuckled. “I’m going to put in for retirement.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You said that every day for a month last year after we had to scrape that family out of the oven in Rhode Island. You’ll be fine by the end of the summer.”
“No,” he disagreed. “Not this time. This was different. This was one person doing it to another. Something wrong about it, Blanche.”
Blanche opened her mouth to answer, but not a sound came out. Her eyes widened, and a hand protruded from between her teeth. A second one appeared a heartbeat later.
Horrified, David watched as her mouth was spread apart. A single, dead eye peered out at him, blinked and a voice other than Blanche’s let out a callous laugh.
David stumbled back, leaving the bags on the floor. Blanche sagged, held up only by the ghost behind her. He watched her eyes roll up into her head, only the whites showing between the lids. Her arms hung limply from their sockets, her stance bowlegged.
A face peeked around her head, a madman’s smile, crazed hair.
David had never seen the ghost before.
And he never wanted to see him again.
“Hello,” the ghost said, moving Blanche’s mouth to mimic his own. “How are you doing today? This evening? This year? Hm?”
David shook his head, edging towards the door.
“You want to leave, do you?” the dead man asked.
David nodded.
The iron ring on his finger itched, and for the first time, David was afraid that it wouldn’t be enough.
“Then you should leave,” the dead man said. The grin vanished. “You should leave now before I change my mind. Before anyone here changes their mind.”
David didn’t hesitate.
He turned on his heel and sprinted out of the kitchen. Blanche was left twitching, hanging like a broken toy on the dead man’s hands. The bags of body parts were on the kitchen floor. Thoughts of retirement were discarded.
David wanted nothing more than to die in his own bed, and at his own time.
The laughter of the Keep’s dead chased him back to the truck.
Chapter 23: A Bad Time of It
In Harlan’s seventy-four years o
f life he had not suffered worse weeks.
None in recent memory compared to the past seven days.
He was in his office, alone, a fresh cup of coffee on the desk. Steam curled up from the dark green ceramic. Ms. Coleman, who was worth her weight in gold, had quietly brought the beverage in.
She had closed the door behind her, leaving him in a vacuum of silence. From the short time in Abigail’s former office, Harlan had come to appreciate the secretary’s intuitive nature.
Ms. Coleman would ensure that Harlan remained undisturbed for however long he decided. This, he knew, was a good thing.
New England would suffer if he didn’t manage his anger.
Shane Ryan and Frank Benedict were quickly becoming problems that Harlan didn’t want to have. He had misjudged the way they would react, and it had cost him. His best observation team had been killed. With the two of them dead, he couldn’t risk sending in the cleaning crew to rid the house of trace evidence. Harlan would have to reach out to an arsonist and hope a fire could rid him of that portion of the problem.
Then he had received the phone call from David, a man Harlan had trained and mentored. Someone he trusted with the delicate ambassadorship between the Watchers and Borgin Keep.
The dead were acting up. One of them had killed David’s partner, a woman whose name escaped Harlan, and chased David from the premises.
And David had put in his request for retirement at the end of the phone call.
After informing Harlan of Abigail’s continued existence.
Harlan snarled at the idea of her alive. She had mismanaged the Shane Ryan affair from the start. With her still breathing, she may have antagonized the ghosts in Borgin, which meant there would be more incidents near the Keep. And more incidents translated to more police activity.
More police activity meant more inquiries, which the Watchers strongly discouraged.
Miserable, Harlan thought, picking up his coffee and taking a sip of the hot liquid. Wretched.
He considered the insertion of another team into Borgin, then shook his head. His people were brave. They all believed in the end goal of the Watchers, of finding the One who would crush death for them.
