by Doug Johnson
“Don’t ruin my fun,” she growled.
Sian clamped a hand over her mouth to silence the snort of laughter that almost exploded from it.
Kitty leaned into Lazarus and the blade scraped across his belt. He felt the icy heat of adrenaline like bleach in his veins and gripped the table harder.
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets castrated.
Lazarus felt he might be sick.
Sian watched on with voyeuristic glee.
Then Kitty nonchalantly set the knife down on the table and Lazarus slumped against her, exhaling with a shiver of relief.
“Dirty boy,” Sian whispered. She quietly turned and raced back across the room, shooing Dylan through the door into the hallway. “Go on, they’re coming!”
Lazarus slipped away from the table, mentally drained but still in grateful possession of all his parts.
Kitty took a healthy pull off the Glenfiddich bottle and Lazarus remembered the knife. His hand crept toward it on the table but Kitty snatched it from his reach.
“You’ll pay for that later.”
Dylan and Sian hurriedly grabbed their things in the parlor. She couldn’t wait to tell him about the handie, but they had clearly overstayed.
“Oh, no. Leaving so soon?” Kitty barked, startling them nearly as effectively as the grandfather clock had. She glided into the room as if she were Lady Bentwicke herself.
“Yeah,” Sian said. “I’m sure you have things to do.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Dylan added.
Lazarus straggled into the room, visibly spent. “Well… thanks for dropping by.”
Both Dylan and Sian just stared at him. Lazarus glanced at the cake stain on the wall.
“No, really.”
“Right,” Dylan said. “Well… see you around.”
Lazarus made for the door.
“No need. We’ll show ourselves out,” Dylan offered.
Sian gave Lazarus a knowing smile and Kitty a once-over with barely concealed disgust before Dylan ushered her from the parlor.
A minute later, Lazarus and Kitty were standing stiffly in the front doorway, the happy host and hostess waving farewell as Dylan’s Fiat rounded the circular drive and disappeared into the absolute dark of a cloud-hooded night in the English countryside.
Neither of them yet had any idea that Arthur McGregor’s second-best shrubbery deliveryman had left his prized Zippo lighter on the couch in the parlor. Of course, with all the excitement, Dylan hadn’t yet even realized it himself.
CHAPTER 11
Had Lazarus not bent a passing glance up at the transom window above the door as Dylan and Sian were making their awkward exit, he would not have noticed it. Something airborne had flitted past, a bat angling for moths perhaps, or maybe the damned kite again. Whatever it was had caught a glint of pale light from one of the few driveway lampposts that remained operational, enough to draw his attention with its fleeting twinkle before winking off into the darkness like a match in a puddle.
It could have been a bloody sprite for all Lazarus knew or cared at that moment. What really piqued his interest wasn’t over the door anyway but beside it. When he pulled his eyes from the transom, there it was, sitting on top of the Queen Anne hall cabinet, hastily stuck behind one of its urn-shaped finials. The black cigarette pack.
The stun gun.
For someone Kitty’s height, it would certainly have seemed hidden well enough, but Lazarus was a good six inches taller then she was.
He had played it very cool. It seemed a long shot that Dylan and Sian would sympathize with an eccentric, cake-slapping recluse that suddenly snatched a concealed electroshock weapon from the shadows and assaulted his petite young houseguest with it. Best to wait until they were gone.
The door latched shut with a solid, brass click and the house became a silent tomb. The two of them stood there like gunslingers waiting for the strike of high noon.
It seemed to Lazarus the perfect moment for the grandfather clock to chime, but it didn’t.
Now.
He spun toward the cabinet and reached for the stun gun. His fingers grazed it but a jolt of pain robbed him of success. Kitty had yanked his head back by the hair and leaped onto his back.
“Don’t you fucking do it!”
Lazarus flung her to the floor with a bony slap that he knew had to hurt, but if it gave her pause it was undetectable. Instead of shriveling, she retaliated, kicking him in the shin with a beefy, Doc Martens crack. Lazarus yelped in agony, clutching his leg and nearly tumbling to the floor himself.
“Okay, baby…” Kitty seethed. “Intermission’s over.”
She popped up to her feet like a seasoned surfer and dashed away down the hallway. Lazarus limped behind her, pain flaring with each footfall. He didn’t want the little bitch out of his sight. God knew what other toys she might have stashed around the house.
In the parlor, she dumped the contents of her bag onto the floor. The handcuffs skittered over the parquet and slid under the sofa. They weren’t what she was after. She grabbed the truncheon and flicked it open. The thin steel baton wouldn’t bruise a bone it struck. It would break it.
“Game-fucking-on.”
Her anger was a handicap and Lazarus knew it. He pressed his back to the wall outside the parlor doorway and lay in wait. His heart pounded with adrenaline. His leg throbbed. He waited as the heavy boots stomped across the floor. He waited as her shadow preceded her through the arch. He waited until he saw the truncheon in her hand and the expression of utter rage on her face as she walked straight past him. It was raw and beautiful, he thought.
Pretty poison. What a waste.
Sian primped in the dim light cast by the Fiat’s visor-mounted vanity mirror for nearly the entire duration of the ride back to town. Her cover-up was two shades darker than her actual skin tone and years of overzealous eyebrow plucking and shaping had left her looking like Geri Halliwell circa 1997. Sian even looked surprised while she slept.
“Not as cool as I expected,” she said finally, not about the eyebrows, but about the visit to the manor house.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” It was defensive. Almost a snap really, but the simple truth was that Dylan totally agreed.
“Dunno. Just thought he’d be different is all.”
Sian flipped up the visor and squinted. Ahead of them in the road there was a flash of movement to the right. Dylan saw it too, a stocky gray animal had pushed through the tall grass on the shoulder, hugging the ground in stealth mode. The Fiat’s headlamps caught its black-and-white striped face and froze it in its tracks, nocturnal eyes shining back in the harsh beam of light like two glowing mirrors. It was a badger, waiting for its moment to dart across the road and devour whatever poor, slimy creature it presently held clamped in its teeth.
“He’s got a frog,” Dylan chirped with glee.
Sian grimaced.
The badger held steady until Dylan started flipping his high-beams off and on in an attempt to provoke the animal back into motion. It worked.
It shot out into the road, the bent legs of the frog springing crazily. Dylan could easily have braked and allowed it to pass safely to the other side. But he didn’t.
He hit the gas pedal and the Fiat sped up with what little horsepower it had.
“What are you doing?” Sian asked.
Dylan’s grin morphed into a cruel smirk. He kept the wheel straight and let the badger seal its own fate. At the last second it hesitated and considered turning back. Dylan floored it and the badger scrambled in blind panic. The Fiat’s front bumper caught the animal’s head squarely and sent both predator and prey spinning off to the side of the road.
“Haha!” Dylan squealed. At last he hit the brakes, and Sian had to grab the dashboard to steady herself.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Dylan didn’t answer. He tilted the rearview mirror and found the gray lump of the dead badger in the red wash of the Fiat’s taillights. The legs of the fr
og, which was every bit as dead and still clamped in the badger’s mouth, continued to spasm.
“Look at the talent! Never dropped the frog!”
Sian rolled her eyes, but peeked into the rearview just the same.
“Ugh. Disgusting.”
She slumped back into her seat and Dylan drove off, quite satisfied with himself. It was the first time Sian had been in the car with him for one of his “scores,” and he was pleased it had been an adversary as worthy as a badger. Dylan had tagged just about every target there was to be tagged in Northern England with the exception of a wildcat. The missing feather in his cap. He was the best. He was sure of it. But he still wouldn’t be satisfied until he proved it.
Within minutes, the village came into view through the windshield. They’d listened to most of the first side of Sian’s “Cowboys from Hell” cassette since leaving the house and hadn’t seen another car since she pressed play. It was nothing but a dark country road, and Dylan rightly supposed the only vehicles that had used it that day had both been driven by him.
“Off to the pub then?” Sian asked.
“I suppose.” Dylan reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of Mayfairs. He flipped one into his mouth and reached back in for his lighter. He couldn’t find it, of course.
“You seen my Zippo?”
“No, why would I?”
“Bugger,” he mouthed silently. There was no question about what course of action was required. Dylan slowed before they reached the village and found a place for the little Fiat to make a u-turn. He looked over at Sian but knew the expression of surprise on her face had nothing to do with the change of plans. She simply flipped the tape, and a moment later Pantera’s Dimebag Darrell launched into another drop-tuned Texas groove metal riff to shred their way back to the manor house.
Lazarus clamped his hand down on Kitty’s thin wrist and bent it back hard. She cried out in shock as much as in pain and the truncheon fell from her hand, clattering to the floor and rolling off like a child’s toy. For a moment, it was as if the hot rage had been dipped in liquid nitrogen. The frosty chill of fear shivered through her straight into Lazarus, and he felt just how fragile she was. Hard, yes, but glassy and brittle nonetheless. She could be shattered. Without the stun gun, she was no match for him.
He threw her over his shoulder and carried her through the entrance hall.
“It’s over,” he said coolly. He threw the front door open, stepped out into the damp night and dropped her to the ground. She landed hard on her ass and sat in stunned silence.
“Get out,” he said with a finality that she completely dismissed. Instead, she stood up and made a show of rubbing her bruised backside. It was a game to her, and since she had nothing better to do, she would keep playing until it lost its novelty. Perhaps for all her splashing she could not yet grasp how far she’d swum out into the murk. Perhaps she thought that it was she who was guiding the undertow rather than it which pulled her further and further from the shallows. Perhaps, as Lazarus imagined she wanted him to believe, she just didn’t care, but that moment of fear he’d felt from her in the hallway had told him otherwise.
“It’s not over until I say it’s over,” she answered back. It had quite a bit more gravitas than Lazarus would have expected.
“This is my home,” he said. “Mine. I make the rules. Now go fuck off back to Canada.”
It was a battle for the last word that Lazarus did not care to fight. He stormed back into the house and slammed the door shut behind him.
Kitty stared at the door for a few seconds in disbelief until the heavy lock cylinder turned into place with a mocking click that shot her back into a tizzy. She pried up a loose brick from the walk and charged the entrance, but before she reached the door it breathed open suddenly, just long enough to spit her skull bag out into her stomach and snap back shut.
“Let me in! I’m not done with you!” The brick pounded away at the door in vain.
Maybe not, but I’m done with you. Lazarus cracked a genuine smile and walked away. It was like setting a phone down while the blabbermouth on the other end of the line droned on obliviously.
“Let me in, you shitbag!”
He retired to the parlor and started cleaning up, sweeping crumbs and straightening pillows while he contemplated how many thousands of tea services the room had seen over the centuries. Barons and earls had most certainly been regular guests, viscounts and countesses, lords and marquesses, quite possibly dukes or even royalty.
“Fucking fucktard fuckstick fuckety fucker!”
“Lovely mouth you’ve got there darling!” He endeavored to make it sound utterly neutral despite the fact that he had to shout so it would be heard. “Your mother must be proud!”
“Fuck you!” Her voice was clearer. Closer. She’d moved from the door to outside the parlor windows, though the heavy curtains spared them any awkward visual contact.
“Go away before I phone the police.”
“You don’t have a phone!”
“Then I’ll email them.”
“You don’t have internet. I cut all your ties with the outside world! You’re stranded. You’re alone! You’re an island!”
A tired sigh leaked from his lips. The night was clearly far from over. He rubbed the gold border piping of the lumpy pillow in his hands.
“I’ll send an instant message… Smoke signals... I’ll use semaphore!”
There was silence, but it was a quiet devoid of calm, and the ticking of the grandfather clock seemed cartoonishly amplified in contrast.
“What the hell’s semaphore?”
Lazarus slapped the pillow into place on the sofa. “It’s flags.” He walked toward the window and addressed the curtains.
“Point being… fuck off!”
“Go ahead and call the cops! I’ll tell them you raped me!”
His body tensed at the word. He was the one fighting the undertow now, but Lazarus dug in his heels.
“You can tell them anything you like, Miss Van Winkle, but I didn’t, and there’s no proof that says otherwise.”
He knew he was right, but it did nothing to dispel the undercurrent of panic that swirled around him. He could feel its ebb, threatening to swallow him up. There was nothing to grab onto though. Panic was weight without mass.
She said something that Lazarus couldn’t hear. He hurried closer to listen, breathing in the stale must of the heavy drapery. He could hear her boots shifting in the grass outside.
“Don’t be so sure,” her voice came back softly.
The panic rose up to his chest and squeezed. The stale air turned thin and dry.
What was she talking about?
Lazarus tried to focus. He fought to recount the events of the evening.
“Rock stars,” she snickered. “I guess when you guys pass out you just go on auto-pilot or something, because… well let’s just say the garden isn’t the only place to find a Morning Glory around here.”
Lazarus sprinted out of the room. The panic was in full swing now. He felt crushed under its weight. It was a constrictor that squeezed tighter the more he struggled against it.
Jesus Christ, what has that little cunt done?
He raced to the front door and grabbed the handle. He almost flung it open but managed to maintain the thinnest remnant of prudence and released it before he did.
“You’re an evil person, you know that?”
“Let me in!” she shouted from the other side.
“I’m not going to let some little psycho bitch terrorize me!”
“I’ll fake it. I know how.”
“What did you do?!”
“I’ll ruin your life. I’ll make sure that you’ll have to spend every last cent you have defending yourself.”
Lazarus rested his head against the door with a dull thud. It was only then that he realized he was dripping with sweat. An awful truth washed over him. His mind conjured up a dozen disgusting scenarios about what had happened while he was unconsciou
s… and there was not a single one among them that he didn’t unequivocally believe she was capable of.
“I’ll have every aspect of your life examined,” she taunted. “This nasty-ass house won’t be your little sanctuary anymore.”
It struck a nerve. His lips curled back into a snarl. No one would ever have believed who the real man was behind the larger-than-life stage persona of Lazarus Walker. It was easy to camouflage himself behind the character he played on stage, the static and bravado, but in the aftermath of a life lived under never-ending watch, his privacy had become paramount. He would not be put under a microscope. Kitty was right. The manor house was his sanctuary. And she was an invader. He threw the door open so hard it nearly splintered against the house.
“How dare you threaten me, you little bitch!” he roared. The echo in the courtyard added an appropriately dramatic touch.
He expected to confront her fury and have it out with her right then and there, but found himself alone instead. All he saw was the shuddering, bilious glow from a single, frosted glass lamppost orb before him. It cast a pool of light that fell away quickly into the creases of darkness. His heart knocked in his ears. His face was hot.
Lazarus crossed the threshold and stepped out onto the pavers of the walkway. He felt its undulations underfoot and looked down, noticing that one of its bricks was missing like a tooth gap in a bloody smile.
Angry is stupid. Angry is careless.
His own thoughts came flooding back with vengeful irony. From the corner of his eye he saw movement to his left. He barely had time to react before Kitty sprung screaming from a recess in the front façade, swinging the missing brick at his head. Lazarus ducked and the brick grazed his temple. He was spared a direct hit but the friction scoured off a patch of skin like a kitchen grater. Grabbing her arm at the wrist, he wrenched the brick from her hand and it tumbled to the ground.
She threw herself at him with alarming ferocity, scratching and clawing at his face. Lazarus flailed backward and tripped on his heels back into the house with Kitty on top of him as they both crashed to the foyer floor. He crossed his forearms in front of himself to shield his face from her mad thrashing. Her fingernails raked at his arms, scoring skin and sweeping sprays of blood away like paint from a brush. She was a wolverine with teeth bared and no capacity for rational thought. He seized her by the wrists to stave off the onslaught and was instantly shocked by her strength. Adrenaline coursed through her lean muscles and gave Lazarus a run for his money.
