Danse Macabre

by Kory M. Shrum

  “Told you we needed an alarm,” Mel said. She checked Dani’s pulse for the fourth time.

  “And the dog,” King agreed. He met Piper’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”

  “Got all my fingers!” Piper cried triumphantly. Mostly because the worried tenderness in his voice, his acknowledgment that what just happened to her might in fact haunt her dreams for years to come, made her heart ache. “But remind me never to get drunk and kidnapped by the Russian mob again. It was not fun the first time.”

  “You were drunk?” Mel said, snapping her head in Piper’s direction as she continued to hold Dani against the seat.

  “No,” Piper said reflexively. “Who said anything about being drunk?”

  Mel’s eyes shot daggers, but she said nothing as they sped through the streets.

  32

  Lou heard the click of the blade extending. But then the world shifted, and Petrov was thrown through the dark. The Alaskan wilderness formed around them. An amphibian chorus fell silent. Something splashed into the moonlit lake, causing ripples to radiate from its shadowed shore.

  Petrov didn’t lose his balance as most of the men did when suddenly landing on this bank. He lunged, thrusting the blade toward her. She dodged him, parrying the blow with her forearm striking across his wrist. The knife was knocked out of his hand.

  The blade hit a large flat stone and skidded into the lake. He threw himself at her, growling.

  The weight of him slammed into her stomach, knocking her back. For a moment, she was weightless, falling through the dark.

  It became the night her father saved her. He lifted her up and threw her into the pool, before taking the gunfire himself.

  She was in the air. She was flying.

  But it wasn’t the cold slap of a swimming pool that struck her.

  Her back hit the muddy bank. All the air left her. Her lungs convulsed, burning.

  Before she could recover, a hard fist slammed into her sternum. The impact rippled through her abdomen.

  “Why my son?” Petrov screamed. “Why mine!”

  He pulled his fist back again, and the knuckles flew through the dark. She moved her head at the last moment and he clipped her ear. It rang in protest. Pain radiated on the side of her head, mimicking the throb of her spasming stomach.

  She bucked her hips and pitched the man to one side. He hadn’t been prepared and toppled on his hands and knees into the mud.

  Lou got to her feet.

  World spinning, chest burning, it took her a moment to gather herself. Her limbs were weak with adrenaline. Her arms were transformed into something between wet bags of sand and live wires.

  “I didn’t kill him because he was your son,” Lou said. “I didn’t even know he was your son.”

  Her throat burned with the effort.

  Why are you even explaining it to him? Another voice chided. Because you aren’t explaining it to him. You’re explaining it to yourself.

  This new voice didn’t sound like her dead father or her dead aunt. It sounded like a sinister version of her own voice.

  “So, I am to blame for this?” Petrov pulled himself to standing. The right side of his body was mud-slicked. He had a smear across that cheek, looking like war paint. “Because I sent him? Because I told him to go?”

  She had no answer.

  “Every man who obeys their master, who goes to the docks, who picks up the shipments, who does as they’re told, you kill them? Is that justice?”

  No, she thought. No, it isn’t. But she hadn’t known how to stop when Angelo died, so now here they were.

  “He was seventeen! He was a good boy!”

  Lou knew it was possible. Children couldn’t be judged by the actions of their parents. She believed this herself.

  “How many innocent people have you killed?” Petrov demanded. He looked ready to launch himself at her again. “Why should you be judge? Executioner? Did god give you this gift? Are you doing his work?”

  Her stomach dropped.

  It wasn’t the hate and disgust in his voice.

  It was the desperate pleading.

  It was that he wanted her to say yes. He wanted her to give him a reason for his loss. He would accept anything strong enough for him to hold onto, any flotsam to support him in the sea of his despair.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked, tears streaming down his face.

  It was his tears that undid her. She knew he was a bad man. She knew he deserved to die far more than the son she’d slain. But it was his anguish looking so much like her own.

  She couldn’t bear it.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. And for the first time, in all her years of killing, she was.

  Screaming, he charged again, and this time slammed full force into her body. She clung to him, holding on as they fell back into water.

  Lou sucked in a breath before the water overtook them. She sank with Petrov in her arms.

  The moonlit depths bled red. The water turned from icy to lukewarm.

  She broke the surface on La Loon once more.

  Petrov didn’t notice. He was only interested in drowning her. Not in the twin-mooned sky. Not in the black forest with its twisted trees and heart-shaped leaves the size of an elephant’s ear. Not in the white mountains in the distance.

  Fine, she thought. Let me die here. Let this be justice in the truest sense. She would be one more body heaped on the shore of La Loon.

  Only she found she couldn’t give up. She couldn’t simply die.

  No matter what she had done, no matter what she did or didn’t deserve, she wanted to live.

  She kicked Petrov hard, forcing distance between them. Only then did he realize where he was.

  She said nothing. She only dragged herself to shore. She stood there dripping and tired.

  “This is where I brought your son’s body,” she said calmly, standing in sopping boots on an alien shore. “I put a bullet between his eyes, killing him quickly. He was afraid. He begged for his life, but there was no pain. Then I brought him here.”

  Petrov stood in the shallow water.

  “Are you an angel of death?” he asked and she saw the anger leeching out of him. There was no room for it as his bewilderment grew.

  “I don’t know what I am,” she said. “But I am sorry about your son.”

  “And me?” he asked.

  She still saw the blood on Piper’s finger. She recalled the fear in her eyes as Petrov threatened to cut each digit off with his blade.

  “I’m not taking you back,” she said.

  A monstrous shriek erupted in the eternal twilight.

  Petrov forgot her entirely. Lou didn’t take it personally. The first time Jabbers had thrown back her head and shrieked, Lou had bolted for safety.

  The heart-shaped leaves rustled as something large bounded through the forest.

  Petrov drew close to Lou as if she might protect him. But then the leaves parted, and the six-legged beast revealed herself.

  Jabbers raised herself to her full height and roared. Her reptilian bark split open the night.

  Petrov dove into the water.

  Lou could’ve told him that wouldn’t save him. She could’ve told him that swimming toward that distant shore offered no more safety than this one. But she let him have his hope.

  Jabbers rubbed her snout against Lou’s stomach, then up the side of her head. It dragged a milk-white tongue over her face.

  And this creature—was it evil? She ate every man that Lou dumped on this shore. Sometimes she killed them herself. Was she evil? Or did she simply need to eat?

  You needed to eat, her mind told her. Every man she’d killed was feeding something inside her. The problem wasn’t that she’d killed them. There was no need to wonder if she’d been right or wrong.

  The problem was the hunger had left her, and she hadn’t yet learned what to do about it. Perhaps her prey had changed and she didn’t yet understand how.

  “He’s yours if you want him,�
�� Lou said, turning her mouth away. After all, while Lou might owe Petrov his life, the world hadn’t pardoned him of all his sins.

  But Jabbers only sat back on her haunches and watched him paddle away.

  Until six dorsal fins rose through the water, surrounding Petrov.

  He was jerked under by unseen mouths, his screams swallowed whole by the rippling waters.

  33

  “You can see her now,” the nurse said.

  Piper, who’d been ruthlessly wringing an issue of Cosmopolitan between her hands, popped up from the hospital chair. She was horrified to see she’d mostly rubbed the face off the pretty country singer gracing the front cover. She laid the magazine face down as if to hide her shame.

  If the nurse noticed this tense exchange, she revealed nothing.

  “We are keeping visits short,” the nurse said, slipping her hands into the pockets of her smock. “But it will do her some good to see a friendly face.”

  Piper repressed a snort. You’re assuming she wants to see my face at all.

  The corridor was bustling with staff, patients in wheelchairs and doctors issuing orders. The nurse stopped suddenly outside a darkened door and rapped on the frame twice.

  “Ms. Daniella, your guest is here.”

  Dani sat in the hospital bed, a tray across her lap with some nondescript meat in a sea of mashed potatoes and peas. Chicken maybe. Turkey? Pork? The dessert was gone, only the remnants of red gelatin stuck to the side of the plastic cup.

  Piper stepped up beside the bed and gave a sheepish smile. She hoped that smile said I come in peace.

  Of course, why in the world should she feel like she had anything to apologize for? She wasn’t the one who lied. She wasn’t the one who used anybody for their own ambitions.

  She also wasn’t the one who’d gotten her finger cut off.

  “You going to be all right?” the nurse asked, reaching behind her to adjust her pillows.

  “I’m fine,” Dani said, poking at the meat.

  The nurse frowned. “You want a soda or something? A milkshake? You’ve got to eat, honey.”

  Piper wasn’t sure what a milkshake would do for the purple bruises shining from Dani’s face and neck. The skin was yellow in places, giving her a corpse-like appearance. And her right eye was bloody—red from lid to lid except for the iris.

  Christ. They beat her so hard her veins ruptured, she thought.

  “I like chocolate milkshakes,” Dani said, giving the nurse a weak smile.

  The nurse patted her arm. “And fifteen minutes for a little chat so you don’t overuse your voice, all right? Then I’ll bring your milkshake.”

  Dani nodded. The nurse seemed pleased by this and slipped from the room without another word.

  Dani pointed to the empty chair with her fork, clearly instructing Piper to take it. Piper felt like standing, but under that glower she had no choice.

  The door clicked shut.

  “I’m surprised you’re here,” Dani said. Her voice broke, cracking on each word. She seemed to read Piper’s mind. “They choked me and ruptured my vocal chords.”

  Piper flinched. “I’m sorry.”

  Dani tried to pull herself upright. Piper rushed forward to help her, getting her under the arms.

  When she was adjusted on the pillows, Dani searched Piper’s face. Finally, she said, “Why are you here?”

  “To check on you,” Piper said. “I thought you were going to die.”

  “Why would you care if I did?” Dani asked. “It’s what I deserve, isn’t it?”

  Piper’s mouth fell open, her mind shocked into disbelief. “No.”

  “Aren’t you mad at me? I lied to you.”

  “I was. No one wants to find out they were used for a story.”

  Dani didn’t even deny it. She only watched Piper speak.

  “But then you got your freaking finger cut off,” Piper said.

  Dani showed her right hand. The finger was reattached with thick ugly stitches and held in place with a fingerboard splint. “They put it back on. You can be mad again.”

  “No,” Piper said, her heart dropping. “But that’s what you did, right? You were trying to get information on Lou. You figured if you hung out with me long enough, you’d meet her.”

  “At first,” Dani croaked.

  Piper’s heart did a little leap. “Are you even gay?”

  Dani laughed. It was a hoarse, raspy sound. “Yes.”

  “Did you actually move here from Baton Rouge?”

  “No. I grew up on the other side of the lake. My parents have a house in Mandeville. I’m not subletting an apartment. I’ve got one more year at Tulane.”

  “Did you really dance?”

  “Ballet until ninth grade and then I rebelled and took jazz.”

  We’re going to have to redo every conversation we’ve ever had, Piper thought. “And you’re majoring in journalism?”

  “English actually, with a minor in journalism, but don’t tell my mother. I got the job at The Herald for the resume.”

  “And what would be better for a resume than a big story?” Piper finished.

  Dani flinched and Piper regretted the snide anger in her voice.

  “I’m not like Clyde, my boss,” she said, putting her fork down. It looked like she was giving up on the mystery meat. “Did she kill him? Dmitri said she did.”

  Piper didn’t know how to answer.

  “They told me things about her while they were…” Dani didn’t seem to know how to finish. “Does she really kill people?”

  “Is this on the record?” Piper asked.

  Dani quirked a smile. “Off the record. It’ll stay between us.”

  “Yeah,” Piper said. “But only bad people. Like guys in the mafia and sleazy politicians who screw people over.”

  “Did she kill Dmitri?” Dani asked.

  Piper nodded. “I didn’t see it, but I think she did.”

  “Then I owe her one.” Dani searched Piper’s face. “Tell me what happened. I was awake a little in the warehouse.”

  “It turned out to be a mechanic’s garage, actually.”

  Dani wasn’t deterred by this reveal. “I heard your voice and some of what was said, but it didn’t make much sense.”

  Piper recounted the story for her, from the moment Mel slammed King’s apartment door shut until delivering Dani to the hospital.

  When she finished, Dani said, “She took the mob boss to…somewhere…and fought him with her bare hands?”

  Piper shrugged. It sounded more than a little vague to her own ears.

  “That’s what she does, isn’t it? She hunts these trash humans and kills them.”

  Piper wasn’t sure what to say. She wasn’t even sure why she thought she could come here and not expect these questions.

  “Just bad people,” Piper said, her defensiveness rising again. It amazed her how protective she felt of Lou. It was ridiculous. Lou could out-knife or out-gun her any day of the week. She didn’t need protecting. But Piper wanted to do it all the same.

  “Clyde was a tool,” Dani admitted. “But I don’t think he was evil.”

  Piper didn’t have an answer for that. She shifted in the chair. It creaked.

  “She going to kill me?” Dani asked. “Because I know who she is.”

  “Do you plan to go public?” It occurred to Piper for the first time that Lou might actually do it. She couldn’t have her face in the papers. She couldn’t have journalists beating down her door.

  She wasn’t sure what to think about that. Did Dani deserve to die because she couldn’t keep a secret? Did she deserve to get beaten half to death for chasing a story? No. But people were responsible for the choices they made, right?

  Piper had been stupid enough to think her mother could change because she’d wanted her to. And it cost her a deposit and lot of heartache. Dani investigated a woman she had no business investigating, and now she was in the hospital.

  It wasn’t right. But it was what it
was.

  “Is she going to kill me?” Dani asked again.

  “I don’t know. I hope not. She isn’t a bad person.”

  Dani gave a weak smile. “I didn’t think she was. She believes in something. And she wants to protect herself.”

  Piper felt strange. This feeling in her chest radiated out into her heavy arms. She realized she liked Dani, really liked her, despite everything. Despite the lies. Despite how horrible she looked beaten half to death in this hospital bed and that one gruesome red eye. There was something in her that reminded Piper of Lou. Maybe it was her steely resolve.

  “Do you think we can convince her I’m not the bad guy?” Dani asked.

  “Do you plan on leaking her identity to the public?” she asked again.

  Dani looked away. “I don’t know.”

  Piper put her head in her hands and sighed. “You better figure that out before she shows up.”

  “You think she’ll come back for me?” Dani asked. Her eyes widened with fear.

  Piper thought of Lou Thorne. The Lou Thorne who took on dozens of men at a time. The Lou Thorne who simply strapped up and made magic happen.

  “Yeah.” Piper sighed, unable to imagine a world where Lou Thorne left business unfinished. “You’ll see her again.”

  34

  Lou stood naked and dripping in the bathroom. She raked a hand across the fogged mirror to reveal her blushing face. She met her own dark gaze as she slid the comb through her hair over and over again.

  The water on her skin began to cool, raising goosebumps along her legs, stomach, and then arms.

  She couldn’t understand what had happened with Petrov. Why couldn’t she kill him? In the face of his violence, she’d had every reason to.

  The moments replayed in her mind. She still saw his face, beet-red as he screamed and the spittle flying from his mouth. Veins bulged in his neck above his shirt collar.

  Why should your vengeance mean more than mine?