by Peter Fang
Craig stopped, then turned to search for the man that called out his name. His eyes finally met Ansen's, but he wasn’t sure who Ansen was, so he raised his voice. “Yes?”
Ansen's heart sank, but he needed to act calm. “Oh, I’m Ansen, with Maria? Leaving already?”
“Ansen!” Craig waved back. “Sorry, I have to leave early tonight.”
“Have you seen Finley or Elise, that new couple?”
Craig shrugged his shoulder passively. “Seems like everyone is looking for them. I have no clue, sorry.”
“Okay, see you later. Nice to meet you.” Ansen waved back, then turned and walked briskly back to the small enclave spot next to the Victorian chair. He sat down, took out his phone, and dialed Elise's number––he felt his fingers were shaking. The phone rang several times but went straight to a voicemail. He then dialed Finley's phone and the same thing happened. Something is terribly wrong, Ansen thought, but didn’t know what to do next. Why is Craig still here when Finley and Elise have already left? Elise is supposed to be with Craig at this point. Who did Elise leave the building with? And where the fuck is Finley?
Out in the street, Finley just finished completing the initial paperwork with the traffic cops. They had to be moved to the side, away from the traffic, so it took even longer than anticipated. He finally picked up the phone and saw multiple text messages left by Ansen, so he called back.
“What’s going on?”
“Where the fuck were you? I just talked to Craig in the lobby. Where is Elise?”
“Wow, hold on. What?” Finley froze.
“I just talked to our target. You guys got the wrong man!”
There was a pause on the other side. “That’s not possible; I saw her get into the car with him.” Finley’s heart sank.
“Did you see the guy’s face? Are you sure it was him? Because I just spoke with him in the lobby. It was the same guy at the bar with her.”
There was a longer pause, then came the slightly confused tone. “I didn’t see the guy directly, but I saw her talking to him before getting into his car. You know her. She would not have got into the car if it was not the same guy she talked to at the bar.”
“Do you still have the tracker on her?” Ansen’s voice was raspy.
“Yes, I can still see her on my tracker. But there’s a small complication. Someone rear-ended me and I ended up hitting a cruiser in front of me, so I got pulled over. We are almost done here. Oh—I gotta go. The trooper is coming back to talk to me. Please send the abort code out to her now. I’ll track and pick her up when I’m done here. I’m so sorry.” The phone went dead.
Ansen texted Elise's phone with an abort code; then he called her voicemail and left the same abort code. He hung up the call with a feeling of frustration and helplessness. But at least he got through to Finley and the tracker was still on her.
Out on the I-5 freeway, Finley was tracking the GPS but saw the signal had stopped moving. The trooper left and now he could catch up to “Craig” and Elise. There was a sense of heightened urgency, but he was not too worried, though, because he knew Elise could take care of herself. His car sped past a van, a yellow cab, and a VW Beetle. He saw a traffic light that just turned yellow ahead, so he gunned the car and passed through the yellow light and onto 6th Ave. He could see that he was getting closer to the GPS signal. The signal was moving again, but this time it was not near the street; it was heading up into an alley. He couldn’t find a parking spot on the main street, so he made another loop around the block and found a temporary parking spot near a side street. He leaped out of the car and ran towards the signal. His right hand reached inside his coat for his piece. The signal was now around an old Teriyaki shop’s back alley. He leaned over to check for Elise, but he only saw a homeless vet holding a woman’s purse—Elise's purse. The old vet was holding up Elise's phone and trying to get it working but couldn’t get past the security code. Finley ran over and pushed the vet against the wall.
“Hey, old man, where the hell did you get this purse?” Finley pulled the purse away from the stumbling vet.
“Get your fuckin’ hands offa me!” the old vet barked back. He swung at Finley but missed.
Finley struck him with his fist into his solar plexus to quiet him. The vet bent over and gagged.
“If you don’t cooperate, it’s going to get worse. I need to find the girl who owns this purse. Now you better tell me where you got this purse in the next two seconds, or you will regret that you ever got out of your bed this morning.”
“I—” The vet coughed and wheezed uncontrollably. He gulped down a gob of air and pointed at the dark alley behind him. “I got it back there in the dumpster. Someone threw it in there. He didn’t want it, so it is mine now.”
“What does the car look like? Was it a gray Toyota?”
“Shit… I don’t know…Yeah, it was gray.”
“Which way did the car go?”
“I don’t know. It just went down the one-way street, you idiot––” The vet struggled to straighten his back and stand up, but he started gagging as he bent over. The smell of alcohol mixed with stomach acid was dizzying.
“Fuck!” Finley cupped his hands over his nose, trying to calm down his raging thoughts. “Fuck!” He wanted to kick the vet in the groin but decided to walk away with the purse. Now the long-range GPS tracker was found; the only way to find Elise was the tracker on her gown—a max of half-a-mile range.
“Hope you never find the bitch, you dickhead!” The vet finally stood up. He put his hands up and balled his fists. “You want a real fight? Put your hands up and fight me straight up like a man! I will shred your ball sacks!”
Finley ignored vet’s taunt and ran back to his car.
The vet yelled, “You’ll never find your bitch—you elitist trash!”
22
Scourge
Elise was in a listless dream when she woke up to a murderous headache. The first thing she felt when she opened her eyes was the cold concrete floor that her face was pressed against. For a while, she thought she was still dreaming, because none of the surroundings were familiar to her, not even the smell, and yet, she could not remember what happened. She struggled to move but was instantly met with a piercing pain inside her head. Her vision was blurry, but she could still make out a hazy yellow light source twenty feet away. There were shadowy shapes and objects, but she couldn’t quite focus her eyes. She tried to look away, but all of her muscles were tight. The only thing she could control was her mouth and where she looked. She noticed a green object about a foot away from her face, so she trained her eyes on it. Slowly, the blurred image resolved into focus and it was a crumbled hundred-dollar bill. The bill had tattoo-like blue ink scrawling. It looked familiar to her, then she realized it was the betting money that Finley gave her while they were on their way to the party; then it hit her––she was completely naked. She tried to look down, but every fiber inside her body was like strains of steel; she could not even lift a finger. Everything that happened that night came flooding back to her:
The party at the Four Seasons; the mission to seduce Craig; the chat with Craig at the bar. Then she got into the car with him, then the sad experience Craig told about his childhood, and then––that last phrase Craig whispered into her ears before she passed out.
She heard a muffled voice outside the room, but she couldn’t quite make out the words because there was still a ringing in her left ear. There was a man’s voice suddenly shouting over another man’s voice, and then she realized that there were two people talking.
As the muffled conversation continued in the other room, she regained her focus again. She tried to move her body but only felt the worse sore on her back. She looked around the room and saw nothing but a chair, the light in the far corner of the room, and a pile of clothes in one corner. She focused her eyes on the clothes because it reminded her of her own clothes. Suddenly, she realized that those were her clothes. It jolted Elise from her stupor, but her mind
still could not remember what happened to her. It was like someone had put a heavy veil over her mind. She focused her mind and tried to remember how she got here. She only remembered she was going to the dinner party, and there was a vague sense of urgency about that party that her residual memory was alarming her that there was something important. She was cold, scared, and confused.
The wall was stripped, with only red bricks covering the entire room. There was a faint scent of alcohol hanging in the air. Elise wasn’t sure if it was her body tricking her, or if the temperature was really low. She could feel one of her legs now, and her right arm was starting to respond to her will. She looked down on herself but didn’t see her arms. She twisted her wrists and realized her hands were tied behind her back. She heard a chain dragging on the concrete floor as she moved. Her hazy thoughts figured she was chained up to something behind her. She tried to inch closer to the entrance by twisting and turning her body on the ground, but the chain tightened up into a rod and wouldn’t let her get close to the door. The chain scraped along the floor, grating against the hard concrete, giving off harsh sparks. The chattering next door stopped, and the room went silent. Elise paused and waited and listened. She was expecting someone to come into the room any second, but there was no noise. A few minutes passed by, and there was still no one responding to the noise. She looked around the barren room, looking for clues, some images that might trigger her memory to return.
Heavy footsteps approached the door; the lock disengaged and the door opened with a low groan. The hallway outside the door was dark; for a few seconds, it appeared no one was at the entrance. But Elise could sense it. There was a man standing at the door, just beyond the entrance. No, there were two. Elise looked up from the ground and could make out the faint outline of two very tall silhouettes. One of them finally walked forward into the room. Elise looked up and saw a tall man with a dark band of paint across his face and pasty skin. She blinked and refocused her eyes. It was actually a man in a mask. The mask reminded her of the Japanese Kabuki mask with a devil’s persona. The man was wearing an all-black jumpsuit. He squeezed his fists inside the leather gloves as he slowly sauntered into the room; the other man remained in the shadow, hiding his appearance.
Back in the Four Seasons, Maria had been waiting for Ansen for the last half hour. Ansen told her that there was an emergency from his art dealer in Europe. It sounded important––some big transaction that went south. He had disappeared into a nearby conference room twenty minutes ago, and she hadn’t seen him since. The music in the ballroom was still going strong, but it had switched to hip-hop. The human mass on the dance floor shuffled and glided around, like a wave that ebbed and flowed with the rhythm. Maria was sitting down on the table, feeling a little exhausted. She looked around for her drink and saw two red wine glasses near where she sat. She wasn’t sure which one was hers, but she figured it was either Ansen’s or hers, so it didn’t matter. She picked one up one and drank it. There was an odd feeling that she she had never felt before; it was hard to describe, but it was like going into your bedroom after someone had been there—something foreign mixed with everything she was familiar with. She knew instantly that the glass was hers, but someone else had touched her wine. She didn’t know why, but she could tell that it wasn’t Ansen. It was someone else—a girl. The thought in her head frightened her. She put down the wine glass in haste, almost knocking it across the table. She wiped her lips with a nearby napkin to get rid of the taste in her head, but the feeling intensified.
The image of a girl in her mind was getting clearer; the “taste” of the girl was Elise. The sensation was familiar; Maria couldn’t help but want to try out some more. She picked up another wine glass next to hers and took a sip. This time she tasted Ansen. Her new ability felt Ansen’s presence outside the ballroom. The feeling was so strong that she could feel Ansen’s movements from where she was.The feeling was scary yet exciting at the same. Ansen’s upset about a deal, and this deal had to do with money, and someone at the party. Maria shook her head, trying to clear her mind. The thoughts went away. She looked at the wine glass; then she put it down. I hope there’s nothing in this wine. I am hallucinating
Elise stared at the man with the Kabuki mask coldly. She was glad that the drugs were still affecting her mind, so she didn’t really feel scared. More pieces of her memories resurfaced: Ansen, Finley, and the mission came flooding back; the dinner party at the Four Seasons, and their target—Craig. How she got here was fuzzy, but she remembered now that she was compromised inside Craig’s car. She assumed the guy in front of her was Craig.
“Why don’t you show your face, you pervert!” Elise yelled. “What’s the point of hiding your face if you are going to kill me? Are you ashamed of your act?”
The man kneeled down next to her and pulled out a long injector device that looked like a high-tech syringe. He waved it in front of Elise like a pendulum. “What were you doing with this in your pocket?” His voice was low and altered by some invisible device.
“We learned that Craig is into child porn, and I’m taking him in for questioning,” Elise stuttered.
“You can come up with a better answer than that, ” the tall man quipped. “It’s ironic that you wanted Craig for some reason, and yet we were also looking for you.”
“What is this…some kind of sick joke? You’d better let me go now, or else a swarm of police is going to be knocking on your door.”
Craig snickered. “That was pathetic. I’ve had teenagers here before who could lie better than you. You see, the real ironic part of this whole thing is that the queen has been looking for you, and we have orders to dispose of you.” The sound-altering device made the voice chilling.
Elise stared back at him blankly, not knowing what he was referring to. “Who is the ‘queen?’ I’m not whoever you are looking for!”
Craig stared at Elise with a skeptical look. “You didn’t know––” He laughed. “You didn’t know?” He shook his head. “Frankly, I don’t know what the queen saw in Maria; if it were me, I would have picked you; such a fine specimen. Truly a waste to dissect you…”
Elise looked back at the entrance and stared into the darkness. “Who else is hiding back there? Come out here so you can face me. Craig? Is that you?” The space outside the door remained ink black, but Elise could feel someone was there. She felt her adrenaline was pumping, and her head was getting dizzy. She had trouble controlling her breathing. Her chest heaved up and down.
“Now, now, girl, be patient. I waited until you woke up; I’m sure you can wait for a little. We have not even laid a finger on you yet, and you are already getting anxious. I was about to skin you alive with this scalpel here, but I think we need to try something different today.”
The tall man slowly stood up and walked over towards the corner where a surgical table stood stolidly. There were sounds of instruments shuffling as the tall man exaggerated his motions in picking out a tool.
He first picked up a bone saw, shook his head, and then neatly put it back down. “I noticed that you have lovely fingers. It would be a shame to make them shorter. I bet you are a good pianist. My goodness, I think you may even be good enough to be a hand model. Everything about you is almost perfect.” He paused, looking up at the ceiling, then looked down again. “But, I’m sure you are bored by now from all of the compliments growing up.” He moved his fingers across the surgical instruments platter and rested on silver pliers with long, crooked pincer-like prongs. He picked one up and raised it to his eye level; then he opened and closed the pliers with a quick snap between his fingers.
“It’s still not too late to tell me who you work for. If you do, I’ll make it quick; otherwise, it’s going to be the longest night of your life.”
Elise spat at the man’s feet. “You are too much of a wuss to fight me bare-handed. I know your kind. You ate fists growing up in grade school, then never got a date from any girl because you’re too ugly.”
The man turned to f
ace Elise with his right hand holding the plier. Even behind that mask, Elise somehow could sense that the man was smiling.
“We’ll see what words come out of your mouth when you start to lose your nails,” the man intoned.
The other man suddenly lifted up his mask and let his face stare back at Elise. “Now, make no mistake. You are not getting outta here today. Letting you in on a secret here—”
The other tall man said, “Ake, what are you doing? You are breaking the protocol—”
“Shut up! This is my show—” Ake tried to control his temper, then resumed his calming voice. “You may not remember Queen, but she wants you dead. It’s a pity, really.” Ake looked over Elise's naked body, noticing all the scars on her, and the tattoo with the poem. “Now, we have seen tortured souls and elaborate tattoos before. Craig, you remember that guy with the full body tattoo? I skinned the guy alive and made a leather boot out of his hide. But you—the blood child—are different. Our master Manfred always revered your kind. He often mentioned this girl June—the last blood child; he said she was special.”