by Mark Lingane
I flipped through my handy utility pack, extracted the old army Remington picklock and rammed it into the rusty lock. I smiled as it clicked open. Made for each other. The gate swung inward with not so much a squeak as a scream of terror that would carry for a few hundred blocks.
The alleyway was clean, swept with military thoroughness. Either someone was OCD or they were leaving no trace of illegal deeds. One thing that wasn't clean was the air. A familiar smell started to percolate, seemingly emanating from two black trashcans sealed with heavy tape. I ripped the tape free and flicked the lid on the first can.
The smell of stale blood rose up and hostaged the air. I clasped a hand over my nose and mouth, trying to prevent the reflex action caused by the bucket of blood. And there was a lot of blood.
I ripped the tape off the second can. Revealing a pair of eyes staring up at me.
The severed head sat atop several blood-soaked bedsheets. I reached in and pulled it out-- by one horn. Blood dripped down, draining what remained into the bin. The two eyes were sad and baleful. I was guessing he didn't want his head cut off. The face was drawn, haggard and old. His brown fur was matted.
Poor goat. There was a chance it was killed for a barbecue, but my senses were saying otherwise. I dropped the head back into the can, gave the goat a sorry-pat, and slammed the lid.
The alley cornered around the back of the building, opening up into a small, cobbled area that made the place look centuries old. A metal door was set into the expanse of bricks and steel. There was a tiny metal grate set into the door. That, too, was shut tight.
The lock on the door was also from another time, so ancient that even corrosion had given up. The old army picklock slid in easily. A minute of twitching and pushing had the thing open. The door swung inward, revealing a dark, cavernous chamber.
I stepped in and the door slammed closed behind me. The space was lit by a couple of dozen thick candles about a foot high set up evenly around the vast room. Going by the amount of wax on the floor, it looked like the candles burned down until near-no-more, then new ones were swapped in. Always glowing, always burning, keeping the shadows away.
A couple of utility tables surrounded by chairs were scattered around the large room, facing inward. A large red star was embedded in the floor in the center of the room, surrounded by five candles that had burned down to nothing but a good time. The star looked just like the one in my office.
I bent down and swiped a couple of digits across the star. It was dry. Not fresh blood, but judging by its color it was less than a day old. Probably drawn some time last night, I guessed. During the full moon. In the center of the star was a great--I hesitate to use the word altar--stone slab resting on heavy stone legs, and in the center of the altar was a hollowed-out depression half full of blood. The smell was bad.
The walls were lined with the kind of equipment people usually use on animals, but in the city, well, they generally use it on themselves. Which I prefer as I don't like to see innocent animals used inappropriately. Just in case anyone missed the hint from the sight of the equipment, the walls were decorated with images showing what could be done--exactly--with said equipment. It was enough to make you give up on humanity.
There were footsteps behind me. A shadow was coming up a set of stairs. A basement. Considering the noise I'd made getting in, a soundproof basement. That couldn't be good.
The shadow evolved into a man wearing rubber waders and an undershirt. He was a big guy, two inches or so taller than me. Well muscled. In one hand he carried a bucket that held a mop, and in the other a shovel. His shoulder-length black hair hung around his face, almost obscuring his green eyes.
I could see defined layers of muscles rippling down his stomach through the thin white fabric. They flexed as he moved. A man who could tip any erring housewife into the cauldron of depravity and make her enjoy it.
He dropped the bucket and shovel. I hoped it wasn't a hand I saw fall out of the tipped-over bucket. He clenched his fists, delighting me with a balletic display of pectoral dancing.
"How'd you get in?" he snarled.
"Door was open." I hitched my thumb over my shoulder.
He looked at me suspiciously. "Would that be the door that I double-checked was locked before I came in? Through the gate that I also checked was locked? You know it's impossible to open those locks."
"Is the proprietor in?"
He strolled over to me, taking a snaking path, until he was a few feet away. "Nah."
"Who are you?" I said.
"The guy who'll take your head off if you ask any more questions."
I held up a picture of lover boy between two fingers. "Have you seen this guy?"
He stepped in closer. He stank of sweat, blood, and possibly a near-fatal amount of alcohol. There was barely enough space between us to squeeze in a pretzel. He took a long sniff over my shoulder.
"You don't smell like a cop."
"I'm worse."
I replaced the photograph in my pocket. The spot between my shoulder blades began to itch again. I shook my head. I'd swear to a preacher the man had become two inches taller.
He swung a hammer-like fist, clipping me neatly on the jaw. I tumbled to the ground, taking out a table and a few chairs on the way. I grabbed a chair leg. The chair came with it. I held it up, and his fist smashed through the seat. I twisted the chair, and he turned and kicked into the side of my head. I went sprawling across the floor, collecting blood, wax, and assorted body fluids.
He ran at me. I jumped up. I grabbed a branding iron off the wall and swung it around and into him. He raised his arm and deflected the blow. It should have snapped his arm clean in half, but the bar just bent. I gave it a quizzical look before throwing it aside. Cheap equipment.
I blinked my eyes in disbelief; the guy now appeared to be a foot taller than me. I backed into a corner and he reached out for me. He grabbed me, lifted me into the air and staggered into the center of the room, where he smashed me down onto the stone slab. I landed heavily, on the edge, and rolled off, miraculously still on my feet. My ribs burned.
In the base of the bloody depression I spotted a knife handle. I snatched it out of the mess. It was sharp; it had cut off a goat's head. I turned, but he was coming toward me like the wrath of the gods, with both fists clenched. He smashed them into my back and I collapsed to the floor.
He bent over and grabbed me by my jacket. I slipped free of it and took a couple of quick stabs at him. The knife cut through the fabric of his shirt, but the effect seemed to be nothing more than mild irritation.
He pulled an eighteen-inch-long dagger from behind his back. Its red blade flashed in the light, almost as if it was alive. I glanced down at my own pitiful blade. I rolled my eyes and threw it aside.
He made a couple of lightning-fast lunges at me, with the last overreaching. I ploughed in under his swing, tackled him around the waist, lifted him up, and slammed him onto the floor. I pressed a knee into his chest, wrenched the knife out of his hand, and pressed it to his throat. His stunned eyes filled with the kind of terror I'd only seen in the war. He seemed normal sized again.
"Let's start again," I said. He nodded profusely, staring insanely at the knife blade. "Name?"
"Levi."
"You seen her, Levi?" I pulled out the photo of Mina and shoved it in his face. His eyes danced between the picture and the red blade. It felt warm in my hand.
"Yeah, yeah. She comes in all the time. Been coming for years. She knows the owner."
"Him?" I switched photographs and held up lover boy Jorgen.
"He came in a couple of months ago with someone, and the two of them hooked up."
Sweat was pouring off the guy. I felt I was in imminent danger of going all wrinkly with his heat and moisture.
"Who?"
He stammered for a few moments before a name marched out on parade. "Silbi."
"Why?"
"When Mina gets bored with her boyfriends she looks for distraction. Silbi prov
ides the distraction."
"Where is he?"
"Leviticus Street."
I raised the knife up and drove it down, narrowly missing his neck and sinking the point two inches into the beer-and-urine-soaked floorboards.
"You've been warned."
I staggered out and back onto the Terrace. I clutched at my ribs, wincing with each step. I scanned the area and found a concealed spot behind a stack of trashcans. I sat down and waited.
Twenty minutes later, as the pain was starting to subside, Levi appeared and looked around cautiously. He'd replaced the waders with a set of ex-army pants and thrown on an old lumberjack shirt. He had his hair tied back and wore a large set of cheaters in some failed attempt at a disguise.
6
I have to admit he was a tricky sucker to track. He moved like the wind, dancing around the pedestrians like they were maypoles. Did he head to Leviticus Street? No. I didn't know what waited for me up there, but his lying was as convincing as a grade school nativity play, and it sure wasn't going to be Silbi.
He rounded onto Paradise Drive. I hated this part of town. Nothing but players, dealers, and con artists soaking up the good land with the good views and clean air.
He stopped in front of a sharp-looking brownstone. He tapped the buzzer three times, then twice, then another three. He waited, glancing around. The wind had picked up and was blowing his hair around, giving him the appearance of an unwashed hound. All he lacked was the tongue hanging out.
I took shelter behind a bus stop. In a few minutes the diesel-powered flying bus had come and gone at its regulation thirty-five miles an hour in a cloud of dark fumes. Levi was gone. There was no sign of him up or down the street.
I ran across the road. A jamoke-man was selling thick wakeup juice a couple of buildings down, bouncing around in his pin-striped three-piece. He tipped his fedora as I approached. No, he hadn't seen a man of that description. After a cup of joe, giving no change for a handshake, and a cray greasing his palm, he could remember better, and yeah, the guy went in the door.
We talked, and the minutes crawled by. He liked the game last week. It had been close. My mind began to melt from excessive banality. He began to preach the wonders of java and the benefits of an alert mind.
The door of the brownstone opened. I slipped behind the jamoke-man and watched Levi slouch away. Once he was around the corner I ran to the door and tapped the same three-two-three pattern on the buzzer. The door swung open, revealing a long dark hallway, beckoning me in.
The hallway ended in a wood-paneled anteroom. The floor was cut marble in the shape of a spiral. Looking at it for too long would send your head into the next dimension.
There was a plain door to the right, and a stairway curving up two flights to a large landing. Behind the plain door was a janitor's cupboard. Mops and buckets. The staircase and landing were made of wood. They looked old enough to be imported from the old country, and given a special coating of old-ium.
The first door on the landing had a label: The Beast lives here. Some rich frat kid thinking he was funny. His door handle was dusty. The neighbor's wasn't. It was also gold plated. It turned easily under my grip. Sounds of activity rolled out.
I stepped off the old wooden floor onto a marble surface so shiny my reflection had a life of its own. The expansive room had warehouse windows looking out onto an infinite plane of smog. Hardly seemed worth the trouble. In the center of the room sat a large bar made of oak inlaid with ivory, with crystal chandeliers suspended above it.
The room was dripping in candy; the finest and most illegal of everything was here: exotic rugs, ancient relics and weapons, missing collector's pieces. Drinks. Drugs. Livestock equipment.
Double doors on the left opened onto a large bedroom draped in velvet. A bed that could take ten dominated the room. To the right, culinary noises echoed behind a closed door. I pushed it open and stepped through. The kitchen reiterated the sentiment of excess in the previous rooms. Standing with his back to me was a slender man with long blond hair. He was washing something in the kitchen sink.
"Honestly, you have the memory of a stray cat. Your age is catching up with you. What did you forget this time?" The voice verged on manic frenzy, tickling the notes of insanity in an octave untouched by the normal.
He turned. He was the most beautiful person I had seen. Even looking straight at him, it was difficult to tell if he was a he. His form seemed to be subtly morphing like some top-shelf illusion as I watched. I thought the beating from Levi must have done something to my eyes. I blinked, hoping to shake the blurry image into focus.
"Oh, it's you," Silbi said, drying his or her hands on a dishcloth. "You want a drink? I've got your favorite."
"No, thanks."
"Come out to the bar. It's more inviting." He or she walked past. I was prepared to believe he was a she now.
As she headed into the next room I saw the big-city heels that were designed more for horizontal movement than vertical, yet she moved with a practiced grace and balance that defied fashion and physics. I followed her to a great mahogany bar.
Behind the bar, she flicked a tumbler down off a high shelf, letting it fall into her hand. She poured a long slug of whiskey rye into the large glass and placed in front of me. "Just how you like it."
I stared at her. I felt saliva collecting in my mouth, willing me to accept the drink. I took a deep breath and reached out for the glass. I was surprised to see my hand shaking. The ache in my mind grew as I tried to resist, but there was no point. The gleam in Silbi's eyes sparked as I picked it up. The pain relented as my hand wrapped around the glass.
I opened my mouth and threw the drink over my shoulder.
Silbi's smile snapped into a frown, but a pretty one. "How about we blow?" she said. "I got some fresh lines clean from the south."
The point between my shoulder blades was itching again. I twisted my head in annoyance. "I'm not blowing," I said.
"You're no fun. It'll be wild. You remember the old days?"
"What old days?"
"Doesn't everyone have old days when they were a little crazy, and did stupid things?"
"We leave them behind."
"Not everyone. I'm living proof of that. I've been disappointed in you. No drinks. No blow. What's left? Let me see."
She came out from behind the bar and stepped in close, running her hand up my trouser leg, fly-fishing between the pleats. "Do you have a fantasy? A special lady friend?"
A vision of L. Mallory flickered through my mind. All buttoned up, but she unclipped her uniform inch by inch and slowly peeled away her shell. It wasn't an unwelcome image, but the timing was bad.
"Or are there two? Oh, you naughty boy," she whispered. She had my full attention within her grasp. "Such a dilemma. How to choose?"
Now a vision of Mina was offering itself up for my consideration, sweeping me along in that determined drive of hers.
"I know," Silbi whispered. "Don't choose. Have both."
Her voice sent chills down my neck. A vision of the two women sandwiching me, the three of us tangled in the red silken sheets in the bed in the next room, tormented me.
"I can feel your frustration, but I can fix that," Silbi drawled.
I looked at her. The image drifted as I overlaid my desires on her. Her appearance shifted between Mina and L. Mallory. The itch between my shoulder blades hammered into my conscience. Then it started to crawl down my back.
Silbi steered me toward her velvet boudoir. I took a few steps, and the image of Mina and L. Mallory grew stronger. The burning spread down my back in a thin line, like it was trying to unzip my skin. My feet continued without much involvement from me, until I put a stop to it.
"Enough." The pain in my head was nearly driving me to my knees. The image of Mina and L. Mallory snapped away, replaced by the thin, brittle appearance of Silbi.
"How dare you defy me?"
She swung her palm around, landing it square on my face. It felt like a red-hot poke
r had struck me. I staggered to the side and collapsed onto one knee, knocking against a silver gas outlet in the wall. It dug deep into my shoulder. The clamping pain vanished from my head, replaced by the ringing pain of the slap. A minor improvement.
"Fine. Be like that," she shouted. She pulled out a red dagger from behind her. It was about eighteen inches long.
"I've seen that before."
"Yeah, we've got a club. You want to be a member, huh, huh? Oh yeah, you can't."
She thrust the dagger toward me, but I ducked out of the way. Maybe the excessive lifestyle had dulled her reflexes. Her trailing hand caught me on the side of the head. I corrected my last thought.
She kicked into my stomach, knocking the wind from me. She brought down the pummel of the dagger onto my back, knocking me flat to the floor. I was up on all fours when she lowered the tip of the dagger and pressed it into my face.
"Sure you don't want that drink?"
I bowed my head. "Stop asking." The clamping pressure was back in my head.
"It'll just be a little one, then we can have a roll in the sack for old time's sake."
I sagged under the pressure. What I did next I'm not proud of.
I sat up and said, "Okay."
"Really?" She eased the pressure on my face.
"No."
I punched up as hard as I could. The blow caught her on the chin, totally by surprise. Her eyes went wide as she flew up into the air. She flung out her arms, and the dagger clattered to the floor. She landed heavily. I scooped up the dagger and had it at her throat before she could recover. Her eyes held the same terror as Levi's when I held his identical dagger to his throat.
I fished out the picture of lover boy Jorgen again. "Tell me about him." I shoved the photo in her face.
