Bad Blood

by David Bussell

  ‘I’m gonna read between the lines and go with a “No” then. Am I warm?’

  ‘He’s Carlisle! How can you live in our world and not know Carlisle isn’t for trusting? I’d sooner trust a scorpion’

  ‘But you’ve worked with him?’

  ‘A scorpion’s magic is as good as any other animal’s,’ he replied, licking his lips. An eaves didn’t help you for money, they helped for a taste of magic. It nourished them, gave them their power. ‘Carlisle is deep-down bad, okay? Runs right through him. He’s not to be trusted. He’s lies and fantasy and betrayal in a purple coat. If I could walk away from him, never see him again, never work for him again, I’d be a very happy eaves indeed.’

  ‘What about the kidnapping? Does that sound like something he’d be involved in?’

  Razor shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  Had Carlisle lied to me? He said he wasn’t involved, but then of course he would. Although… why not just kill me? If he knew I was on to him, how come I was still around?

  ‘So who you saying he took?’ asked Razor. ‘Chances are I know about it.’

  I hesitated. Did I really want him knowing my business? My history? Fuck it, I wasn’t going to get anywhere by hiding.

  ‘My brother. My baby brother James was taken, years ago.’

  ‘Baby? Hm. No. That don’t sound like Carlisle. I mean, he’s done more bad than you can imagine, but a baby? No. That ain’t him. He’s not got many lines he won’t cross, but that’s one of them.’

  I leaned forward, my eyes locked on Razor’s. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Sure? I once saw him break a man’s arm for shushing a crying baby. Yeah. I’m sure.’

  I nodded and slumped back in my chair. Did that get Carlisle off my shit list? I still hadn’t made up my mind. How can you trust a man who tells you he’s a liar?

  ‘We done?’ asked Razor, thumbing to the door.

  ‘For now. But know this: if you ever pass on something that leads me the right way, I’ll get you all the tasty magic you can eat.’

  Razor grinned, showing off his twin rows of tiny piranha teeth. ‘You’ve got yourself a deal, lady.’

  Razor downed what was left of my pint, stood, and left without a goodbye. As I watched him go, I thought back to my meeting with Carlisle, replaying our conversation on a London rooftop.

  ‘You’d found your way into a blind alley. To an intricate puzzle of interconnected blind alleys, in fact, that stretch for miles. To Other London, as those who frequented the place once called it.’

  ‘Other London? Where the hell is that?’

  Maybe he wasn’t involved in the kidnap, but he knew more than he was telling. I could feel it in my gut. I shook it off and checked the time. I was long overdue on delivering some not so great news.

  I swept the destroyed beer mat to the soiled carpet and headed out.

  I spent a while trying to figure out how I was going to update the Galoffis in a gentle, soothing manner, before I gave up and decided to shoot them straight.

  ‘It’s all cool,’ I told them. ‘I’ve seen Jek up close and measured his strengths now. Next time we meet, things are going to be different, I promise you.’ Promises are easy to give when you don’t mind lying.

  Obviously, the Galoffis weren’t exactly thrilled at the fact that I’d let Jek get away, but at the moment of my arrival, they had something a bit more pressing on their minds, namely the two corpses impaled on their front gate.

  The bodies with the wrought iron spikes through their chests were a couple of Galoffi goons. From what I was told, they’d been guarding the gate before they were skewered on it. How did they get all the way up on those spikes though? They had to have been ten feet high. There was nothing above the gate for them to have been pushed from, no window, no balcony. The only way they could have ended up getting shished like that was if they were thrown up into the air and impaled by the fall, which would have taken a killer with tremendous strength.

  I walked around to the other side of the gate to see that the shirts the goons were wearing were torn open to the navel. Words had been carved into the flesh of their torsos.

  This was Jek’s work, no doubt about it.

  While I’d been numbing my wounds with whiskey at Baker’s Pub, he’d been busy here, leaving the Galoffis another ransom note. I guess he’d run out of paper.

  I tilted my head to the side to read the message, which was presented upside-down...

  BLACK ROCK CAR PARK - DAWN

  Then I read what was carved into the belly of the second body, Jek’s latest demand...

  GALOFFI WOMANS ARM

  Holy shit, this guy was serious (though apparently not about grammar).

  The Galoffis returned to the house with a small regiment of henchmen in tow, including Busey’s Stuntman, the one whose nose I’d demolished earlier.

  ‘What do you want me to do, sir?’ he asked Layton.

  The Galoffi patriarch wrung his hands. ‘I need you to take Mrs Galoffi to the back room and prepare the kidnapper’s ransom.’

  ‘Sir?’

  I saw Millie’s eyes widen. ‘We’re not really going through with this, are we?’ she asked.

  ‘What choice do we have?’ Layton replied. ‘They have our boy.’

  Millie began to hyperventilate. ‘I don’t know if I can do this, Layton.’

  ‘I gave them a finger.’

  ‘Then give him one of my fingers too! This is a whole bloody arm!’

  He took his sister, the woman he banged with his penis, by the shoulders. ‘You must, darling. For Leo.’

  ‘Perhaps we could cut off one of our goons’ arms and send that. You wouldn’t mind, would you?’ she asked Busey’s Stuntman.

  ‘Uh. Well. Thing is…’

  ‘Darling, I hardly think that oaf’s arm would pass for your own slender, delicate appendage.’ He lifted her arm and began to plant kisses across it, going full-on Gomez Addams.

  ‘My love…’ she cooed. ‘You are right. We cannot risk angering them. For Leo.’

  ‘For Leo,’ agreed Layton.

  Busey’s Stuntman led her away with a look of relief on his ugly mug.

  Layton fell heavily on a dining room chair and hung his head in his hands. He stayed that way for a while then said, ‘I hope you realise this is your fault, Ms Banks.’

  ‘In my defence, I didn’t know the fucker could make swords and snakes jump off his skin. That’s the kind of information you feed a girl, boss.’

  He made his way to a drinks cabinet and poured himself a tumbler of rare scotch from a crystal decanter. He didn’t offer me a glass. Not that I needed any more booze, I still had a pretty decent buzz going on.

  As Layton sipped at his scotch the sound of an electric buzzsaw firing up elsewhere cut through the room. Cut through it just as it would soon cut through flesh.

  Layton stared at me over the rim of his glass, his eyes glacier-cold. ‘You know what I think, Ms Banks?’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, my words soundtracked by the sound of metal chewing through bone next door.

  Layton toyed at the bandaged stub of his little finger. ‘I think if this goes on for too much longer there won’t be anything left of us to chop off. Maybe that is the plan. For us to send ourselves to Mr Jek piece by piece until we run out of parts.’

  I didn’t respond, just held his gaze, trying to read him. Could he still be behind this? Could he have tricked Millie into losing an arm just so he could make Leo’s disappearance look like a kidnapping, and have her all to himself? Yeah, he’d chopped off his own finger, but that was a different story to losing a whole limb. What if that was Layton’s way of deflecting suspicion from himself? Was he capable of such insane behaviour? Well, sure. But still, it didn’t sit well. He was the head of a crime syndicate. I just couldn’t see him putting his own people through this nightmare, risking the loyalty of his men, of his own family, no matter how messed up in the head he might be.

  No, someone else had to be responsible fo
r Leo being taken. Someone with a grievance. According to Layton’s list, there were plenty of candidates. Plenty of people with a grudge who’d be only too happy to whittle the Galoffi family down to a nub. I’d begun to think there was no way whoever took Leo intended to give him back. This wasn’t about money, this was starting to look a lot like revenge.

  Layton’s chair scraped back as he stood. ‘Follow me.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Do you think, with my heir on the chopping block, that I would sit here idle, Ms Banks?’

  I didn’t reply, but yeah, I kinda had thought that.

  Layton turned and strode from the room, and I followed along in his wake.

  ‘So where are we off to? Tour of the house? I’m guessing you must have at least seven bathrooms in this place, am I right?’ Layton said nothing. ‘Eight? No way you have nine bathrooms, come on!’

  He led me through the gothic mansion, away from the sound of the buzzsaw cutting into his wife, until the noise had melted away completely. Which was a relief.

  I followed him through a stout wooden door and down a dank, stone staircase that descended in a tight spiral. The bottom opened out into a cold, stone basement. Ahead of me I saw a short corridor with a row of iron-barred cell doors either side, gnawed on by rust and time but sturdy nonetheless. The doors of the cells each featured a meshed-over spy hole set at head height. Eyes from within followed me as I passed, some of them looking at me imploringly, others entirely vacant. Dead eyes, hopeless eyes.

  I heard a vile slurping noise coming from inside one of the cells and fell out of step with Layton. Peering through the spy hole into a cramped chamber, I saw an emaciated figure dressed in tattered rags. The prisoner was hunched over and facing the opposite corner with only the back of his head on show. Dark, greasy locks tumbled over skeletal shoulders the colour of curdled yoghurt. I wanted to say something to him, but I was fearful that my voice—amplified by the darkness—might shatter him like brittle glass. The gaunt figure slowly turned around. His chin was slick with blood, and in his hands he clutched the carcass of a rat, the skin of its belly chewed back to reveal a ruptured rib cage.

  I decided to move on.

  I wandered by at least eight more prisoners as I followed Layton, and as I passed them I wondered what each of them had done to earn the Galoffi family’s wrath. Wondered what had been done to them in return. I’d gladly have wagered every penny I had that not a one of them would be leaving that basement alive. They were dead already, just quietly waiting for the final plunge of the knife.

  ‘We’re here,’ said Layton, stopping at the far end of the stone corridor and unlocking a cell door.

  He pointed to an indistinct lump on the floor, stained dark with blood.

  ‘What’s that?’

  At first I’d taken it for a pile of rags, some old blankets tossed against the wall, but then it began to move. The lump turned to face me and I saw that it was actually a person, a woman, covered in fresh wounds. Her right ankle was manacled and chained to the wall she was pressed up against.

  ‘Hi there,’ I said, giving her a wave. ‘Had better days, right?’

  The woman, her close-cropped hair dyed bright orange, teardrops tattooed down each grimy cheek, looked up at me and grinned, exposing two rows of metal teeth. It was quite a look. Not sure if it would catch on, though.

  I turned to Layton. ‘So, what’s happening here exactly?’

  Layton walked to the other side of the cell—the side out of the prisoner’s reach—and arrived at a bench heaving with metal tools. Sharp tools. Blunt tools. Tools meant for gouging, tools meant for breaking. His fingers brushed like feathers across them all until he made his selection. With one hand, he lifted a hammer, with the other, he grabbed a wooden stool that sat by the table. He brought both back with him, placing the stool a foot from the teardrop-tattooed woman and taking a seat, the hammer resting against his thigh.

  The woman’s eyes flicked from the hammer, with its large, blunt, metal head, then to Layton’s eyes. A strange giggle slipped from between her metal teeth. She was clearly scared, but she was also, unmistakably, off her rocker.

  ‘Don’t go quiet on me now, Layton,’ I said, doing my best not to sound creeped out. ‘What are we doing down here? Who is that?’

  ‘This,’ replied Layton, pointing to the woman with the business end of the hammer, ‘is Allia Loake. Allia is an associate of Sharez Jek’s, isn’t that right?’

  The woman smiled and nodded and chewed at the rags she wore.

  ‘Just lovely to meet you,’ I said, giving her a nod.

  ‘Allia Loake knows Jek well. Probably as well as anyone could, and she is going to tell us just why he has chosen to steal away my heir. Because if she doesn’t, I am going to break her beneath my hammer and I am going to grind her beneath my shoe until her soul departs her body. I will then take hold of that soul as it wriggles and screams and tries to escape, and make her wish she had sold it to a demon for eternal torment, such are the unpleasant acts that I will dedicate my long life to inflicting upon it.’

  Jesus, quite the speech. I almost applauded.

  ‘I think he means it, metal-mouth,’ I told the prisoner. ‘Maybe tell him what you know. I know I would.’

  ‘Jek!’ said Allia, the word exploding from her mouth with a toddler’s enthusiasm.

  ‘That’s the guy,’ I replied.

  ‘Jek! Jek! Jek!’

  I turned to Layton. ‘Yeah, I’m not sure how good of a source this one’s gonna be.’

  Layton Galoffi stood, spat on the flat front end on the hammer’s head, then brought it down with force on Allia’s shoulder.

  ‘Jesus!’ I said, stepping back in surprise at the sound of bone cracking and the animal howl erupting from Allia’s anguished mouth.

  Her arm hung limply by her side, her rotator cuff no doubt turned to powder by the blow she’d suffered. Layton took his place on the stool again, quite relaxed, as though nothing incredibly violent had happened.

  ‘Why would Jek take my son?’ asked Layton, as Allia rocked back and forth, one hand clutching her pulverised shoulder. ‘I paid him well for any service he provided us in the past. When we stopped our association I gave him a handsome bonus if he vowed never to work with any of our rivals. Promised to best any sum if they offered. What could the price be that would make him turn his back on that arrangement and work against us?’

  Well, that was a little fresh information, and a good point. If Layton had agreed to pay Jek more than any of his rivals, why would he decide to work against the family at all? It didn’t make sense. But then, having met Jek, perhaps sense wasn’t his strong suit.

  ‘Allia, love, just tell the man what you know,’ I said, crouching so I was on her level.

  Look, I’m an assassin, a trained killer, I’ve got more blood on my hands than I care to think about, but even I found the torture of someone who was clearly a slice or two short of a full loaf a little strong to stomach.

  ‘He’s my friend,’ said Allia, her jaw trembling.

  ‘Maybe I can be your friend, too?’ I suggested.

  Her tears stopped and she looked at me with wide, watery eyes. ‘Not a friend like Jek.’

  I thought back to the insane tattooed man, talking to a corpse, and wondered just what kind of a friend a maniac like that could be.

  ‘I want to stop you getting hurt. Isn’t that something a good friend does?’

  Layton stood, stepped forward, and stomped hard on her right ankle. Allia bucked, screeching in agony.

  ‘Wait, just wait a second,’ I said, stepping between Layton and his writhing victim. ‘Let me have a go.’

  ‘Ms Banks, I do not need torture lessons from you.’

  ‘Come on, maybe she’ll open up, you know, woman to woman...’

  Layton frowned as he looked past me to the bloodied prisoner. ‘Here,’ he said offering me the hammer.

  ‘Thanks, I’ll pass.’

  Layton’s eyes darkened. ‘I want
her to feel pain.’

  ‘Let me try my way first.’

  ‘If I cannot trust you to do the unspeakable now, how am I to trust that you will do the right thing when you face Jek again? How am I to trust that you will be the person to bring my son home safely?’

  ‘This is my job, okay? You brought me in because you know how good I am. Know how many people, how many monsters, I’ve sent to an early grave. Believe me, when push comes to shove, I’ll turn Jek’s lights out without a second thought.’

  Layton frowned and studied my eyes as though he was trying to see past them and into my very soul. ‘Fine.’

  I sagged a little in relief. I was no stranger to torture, but this just felt wrong. After what I’d just experienced with Jek, torturing this vulnerable woman made me feel like I’d be slipping too close to the insane waters he swam in. I’m a killer, I’ll murder you for money, but there has to be a line.

  Layton took his place back on the stool as I turned back to Allia and crouched by her whimpering form once again.

  ‘Allia. Allia, look at me.’

  The woman lifted her head so her eyes met mine.

  ‘I can make him stop. I can make the pain go away.’

  ‘Pain gone?’

  ‘Poof, like magic. No more hitting. No more pain.’

  ‘Because we’re friends?’

  ‘That’s it. And you know, sometimes… sometimes friends do bad things. Sometimes, even though they’re your friend, even though they might have done good things for you in the past, you have to do the right thing and stop them hurting someone else. Do you get what I’m saying?’

  Allia nodded and brushed a sleeve across her leaking nose. ‘Want to know why Jek does what Jek does?’

  ‘That’s it. That’s all we want to know.’

  ‘But… but that’s not all. I know, I heard, you want to hurt Jek like you hurt me. Want to kill Jek!’ She was shaking, her face creased with anger.

  ‘Okay, let’s just turn down the heat, Allia...’

  ‘Friends don’t betray friends!’ she screeched, her face surging forward towards mine. I stood and took a step back.