by Raythe Reign
“Mr. Clementi, where were you last evening?” she asked.
“You found Jason, didn’t you?” His mouth pulled down into a frown at the last moment as if he realized he should be frowning, should be concerned.
“Where were you last evening?” she repeated, not specifying a time, not feeling the need to.
“Do you know what it’s like to wait for something? To wait so long that you almost think it will never happen, but then it does?” Clementi asked, his change of subject lightning quick.
“That’s not what we’re discussing here. We’re discussing your son –”
“Actually, we’re discussion yours.”
Mary pulled her gun. It was up and aiming at Clementi’s center before she was consciously aware of it. She was thinking of her sons’ names etched in flesh. This fucker had raped and killed his son and then cut her beloved boys’ names in that innocent flesh. He smiled at her. Sweat broke out all her face and beneath her armpits. A cold wash of perspiration.
“Put your hands up, Mr. Clementi,” her voice was crisp and cold even as a trickle of sweat snaked down her spine again.
He put his hands up, but slowly and that goofy, inappropriate smile didn’t leave, didn’t even dim. “Isn’t this rather sudden or are you just touchy about your boys, Sheriff?”
That jibe at her title was supposed to make her doubt her actions. She’d pulled a gun on a man simply for being strange, for mentioning her sons, but she was sure he was guilty.
“I should have done this the moment I saw you,” she growled.
“Good! You’re trusting your instincts finally!” He grinned again as if proud of her.
She thought of her sons’ names on Jason’s skin. “How do you know me?”
He smirked and laughed. “Aesir.”
“What does that have to do with me or my family?” Her gun rose up to his face. “How do you know me?’
“I wasn’t sure that Cameron and Liam were really the ones, you know.” He made air quotes with his fingers around “ones”. “Even when he came into town and seemed to take an interest I wasn’t sure. He’s always had a thing for blonds though really Liam would have been more his type than Cameron.”
“Munoz!” she called, ignoring Clementi’s ramblings.
No response.
Clementi continued, “I thought locking the Aesir away would please me. Make things better. But it didn’t. I’m stuck here just like they are stuck in Asgard. But maybe – just maybe – your sons can let me out of here.”
“MUNOZ!” she cried.
No response.
“I really, really want to get out. Humans are so boring. They’re so predictable Even the evil in their hearts is like a fucking re-run! You make the same movies over and over again, it makes sense that your secret, hidden desires would be the same. Oh, you’ve no idea how BORED I’ve been,” Clementi raved, but quietly and calmly.
She recognized madness when she saw it and she saw it staring out of Clementi’s blue eyes that flashed cataract white for a second. She blinked. She couldn’t go crazy herself now. That had to wait.
“But now things are going to start to get interesting again and I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I really can’t wait!” his voice rose up in this almost shout of glee.
“Mr. Clementi, turn around and put your hands behind your back! Are you listening to me?” she asked.
“Of course, I am, but you aren’t listening to me or yourself for that matter.” He turned his back to her, placing his wrists together at the base of his spine so that it would be easy for her to put the cuffs on him.
But the truth was that she didn’t want to get near him. She thought of yelling for Munoz again, but he would have responded to her if he could, which meant something was very wrong in the basement and every second she delayed up here might be a second that Munoz didn’t have. So she took her cuffs out with one hand while she kept her gun raised. Once he was cuffed, she’d call for backup and get Munoz.
When she snapped one cuff on Clementi’s wrist she felt a wave of relief go through her. She glanced around at something to cuff him to, but there was nothing that would hold so she cuffed the other wrist and shoved the man down into a chair at the table.
“Don’t move,” she snarled.
She kept her gun on him as she edged around towards the closed basement door. As she was doing this, she realized how if this were a horror movie people would have been screaming at her and Munoz not to go into the house then not to split up and then not to go into the basement just like her sixth sense had been telling her the whole time.
But a sheriff’s job is to go forward. Forever on. To do what others don’t want to do. Even if it’s foolish.
She opened the basement door and glanced down. Other than seeing a pool of yellow light at the bottom illuminating the stairs and a square of concrete floor there was nothing else she could see.
“MUNOZ! JUAN, ANSWER ME!” she cried. Her voice echoed back at her mockingly. There was a sound from the table. Her gaze immediately snapped back to Clementi. He hadn’t moved from the seat. “Where is your wife? Is she down there? Is she a part of this? Or did you kill her, too?”
But if he killed her then Munoz would be back up here by now.
He looked up at the ceiling as if contemplating an answer to the question. “In a way no and in a way yes.”
“If she’s hurt Munoz, you both will be so sorry –”
“I did warn him that it would be his funeral if he went down there, didn’t I? I mean you have to give me some credit for that.” Clementi pouted. Actually pouted.
“You killed your son,” she whispered. Her voice was filled with loathing.
“I killed Jason, yes. He’s not my son really. I mean he is and he isn’t. It’s all so complicated since you don’t allow yourself to see the truth. I mean Cameron told you. He explained everything to you back then, but you still act as if you have no idea.” He shook his head as if deeply disappointed in her. “And after everything your mother told you to still not believe –”
“SHUT UP!”
Her finger nearly squeezed the trigger at the statement about her mother. Her mother and basements and she thought she heard a thump from the basement. Her head snapped towards the basement’s open door and she knew the moment she did it that it was a mistake. There was a shadow in the light, but it was all wrong. Her head turned back to Clementi though, but he wasn’t in the chair. He was an inch from her. Grinning. And the cuffs’ chain was snapped in half.
She pushed her gun into the man’s gut. It felt wrong. Too soft. “Mr. Clementi, get the fuck away from me. Right now.”
The gun didn’t frighten him and she realized she was going to have to shoot him. Maybe that was for the best. He was a monster after all. His breath smelled of rot. The scent had been coming from him and the basement, too, all the time.
“Maybe your mother was right that you learn so much better underground,” he said.
He pushed her.
She fell.
Her left hip hit the stairs and her left shoulder slammed into the floor and then her head snapped back and hit concrete, too. Pain exploded in her body like three fireworks going off at the same time. Her vision went in and out. Between the blackness, it looked like Clementi was phasing down the stairs towards her. The gun wasn’t in her hands any longer. It had flown off somewhere. She had to get up. Had to get away from him.
“Munoz,” she got out.
Clementi was on the final step and she was still lying on her back on the ground. Her head lolled to the side, but the rest of her didn’t move. She saw the bottom of Munoz’s shoes. He was on the ground, too. Face down. Not moving either.
“Juan.”
Rage built inside of her and she was suddenly clearer. She levered herself up even as nausea rose up in a tidal wave to consume her. The Clementis would pay for what they had done to their son. They would pay for what they’d done to Juan. She would make them pay.
“You’ve got
the gods in you, too. You really should be out like a light, maybe even dead of a broken neck or a smashed skull. But here you are. All awake and mostly aware,” Clementi crooned. He got down on his haunches to look at her.
“You’re a murderer,” she got out.
“I’m so much more than that! It’s a shame you won’t know in this life what it is to fear me. But there will be other lives for you.”
Clementi reached for her throat. His lips writhed back from his teeth as if he intended to bite down into her flesh with them. At that moment, she saw the woman, Elda, on the stairs. She was dressed in that ridiculous black leather costume. Actually it should have looked ridiculous, but it didn’t on her. It looked right especially with the broadsword she was wielding. She put one finger up to her lips - silent, be silent, Mary - before hefting the sword over her head and bringing it down on the back of Clementi’s skull.
Clementi’s eyes went white again. He should have died right then and there. The back of his head had been split open, but he growled and tried to lunge back at Elda. The woman expertly withdrew the blade, pulled it back and sliced clean through his neck. Clementi’s head flew off and went bouncing away. A fountain of blood should have erupted from his neck, but there was none. Red-black ooze came out before the body flopped down on the ground.
Then something black rose from it. Clambered out of it. Spindly and strange and … Mary felt all the strength draining out of her and her vision blurred. When her vision cleared again, there was no black figure rising out of Clementi. Elda was gone, too. She tried to twist her head to see Munoz, but her body wasn’t working for her any longer. Was he alive? Was he dead?
“Don’t let it get out,” the African man cried as he thundered down the basement stairs. Nafari was his name.
“There’s another body here. Maybe two more,” Elda said from somewhere deeper in the basement.
“It’s got a second form! It’s getting out!” another woman yelled, maybe the Chinese one she had met.
“Go! Go after it!” Elda ordered.
“But what about her?” Nafari asked. “What about him?”
Mary’s eyes were closed now and she could no longer see him, she felt him looking at her and Juan with concern. Heard it in his voice.
There was a brief touch of cool fingers on her forehead and Elda responded, “The other … I don’t know. But she’ll be all right. She’s a warrior. She’ll pull through.”
And with those words, Mary passed into blackness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: COLD THOUGHTS
Liam felt Loki’s strange golden gaze on him as he crossed back from the kitchen to the sofa with a steaming cup of coffee for Cameron. His little brother sat on the couch with his knees brought up against his chest and his arms wrapped around them. His blue arms.
The blue didn’t stretch all the way to Cameron’s shoulders, but only to his elbows. The lemon yellow t-shirt he wore contrasted hugely with the icy blue. His blue fingers dug into the soft pair of gray sweat pants he also wore. His feet were bare and his toes curled over the edge of the couch. Liam had an urge to run his hands over those toes and see them flex. But Cameron wasn’t letting Liam touch him at the moment.
“Drink this.” Liam offered the cup to Cameron.
His little brother’s sky blue eyes fixed on the hot coffee then filled with dismay. “Getting me something warm, won’t work, Liam! The coffee will just free like the tea! Won’t it, Loki?”
He turned his head towards the Aesir who was leaning against the opposite wall from the sofa right by the window. His arms were crossed over his broad chest and his golden eyes glowed. The light from the window made it hard to see his face. Just his eyes were visible.
“It will if you believe it will,” Loki finally answered.
Cameron held up his blue forearms as though they were exhibits. “It’s not what I believe. It’s what these things will do!”
“Those things are your hands and arms, Cam,” Liam said calmly and pushed the coffee on him again. “They’re a part of you.”
Cameron turned back to him and gave the mug a doubtful look, but when Liam extended it to him again, he reached for it. “Be careful not to touch my skin, Liam.”
But the cup never actually exchanged hands. The coffee froze solid the moment that Cameron brushed his fingertips against the mug’s surface. There was a cracking sound as the ice formed. Both brothers looked at the chunk of iced coffee inside the cup.
“I told you,” Cameron said mulishly and fell back against the sofa, letting out a disgusted sigh as he crossed his blue arms over his chest.
Liam put the frozen cup of coffee on the table and then settled on the couch beside Cameron. His little brother scooted quickly away from him, hugging the arm of the sofa to get as far away from him as possible. Liam noted that the couch did not freeze when Cameron touched it. His clothes also hadn’t frozen when he’d gotten them on earlier.
“Don’t touch me, Liam! I don’t want to hurt you!” Cameron cried, eyes wide with terror.
Liam looked over at Loki. “Could he hurt me? I’m dead after all.”
“If he believes he can he will,” Loki responded.
“But –”
“We’re not testing it, Liam! Not until this goes away!” Cameron interrupted and waved his blue arms in the air again.
“The blue color will go away, won’t it, Loki?” Liam asked the god.
“If he believes –”
“Don’t even,” Liam growled.
Loki grinned. “The blue color will likely go away and then Cameron will believe that he can’t freeze things so he will believe you safe to touch and be touched by him.”
“But he really will still have the ability to freeze things then as he does now?” Liam clarified.
Loki shrugged. “Whatever he believes is true. Magic is all about the wielder’s belief after all. Cameron is rather unique, but I don’t believe the immutable rules are going to break for him.”
“Magic!? Magic,” Cameron let out a faint hysterical laugh. “Great. I have the ability to freeze my brother solid. That’s exactly what I’ve always wished for!”
“It’s okay, Cam.” Liam reached for him, but his little brother gave him a look that froze him in place without any actual freezing taking place.
“You see it that way, Liam?” Loki’s voice drifted over to him, soft and almost longing.
“Of course.”
Loki was strange in general, but he’d been even stranger since he’d come up into the apartment and seen the layer of frost everywhere and Cameron’s blue arms. At first, Liam had believed his attitude had something to do with how he had found them. Clearly, they were having sex. Clearly, they were brothers. So, clearly, this was all incest and wrong and twisted. But then Loki had dispelled that notion right away.
“I wondered when Cameron would get one of his fondest wishes,” Loki had said the moment his head popped up over the stairs. “Though I don’t think that this was the kind of happy ending he was hoping for.”
“Not helping, Loki!” Cameron’s voice had been high and tight. “Do something!”
“What should I do?” Loki climbed the last few stairs and strode over to the bed.
“Something! Anything!” Cameron cried. “Deal with the blue hands! Or the ice! I don’t want to —”
“Freeze Liam’s dick off? Yes, I can see why you would want to avoid that. He has a very nice cock. Is it everything you hoped it would be?” Loki started to circle them. He reached in and took some of the frozen semen on Cameron’s chest and ate it.
“You did not just do that.” Cameron gave the god the evil eye.
“Yum, creamy. The best ice cream ever.” He reached in again, but Liam batted his hand away.
“None of that is for you,” Liam growled.
“Your brother doesn’t share! How rude!”
“And neither do I! Loki, help us. Please,” Cameron begged.
“All right. Do not think cold thoughts,” Loki said and grinned
.
“LOKI!” Cameron and Liam screamed together.
“That is my advice. Do not think about anything cold,” Loki said.
“All I can think of is cold thoughts!” Cameron cried. “There’s ice everywhere!”
Loki leaned in again, but this time he was looking at Cameron’s blue hands and forearms. The blue seemed to fascinate Loki and Liam was guessing that wasn’t because blue wasn’t a normal human skin color. It was something clearly unexpected, but also pleasing to Loki. It wasn’t pleasing to him or Cameron. They were afraid to move and cause more ice to form. Loki circled them several times, looking at them from all angles. The whole time Loki had been biting his lower lip as if to keep in laughter. His golden eyes had danced with delight.
“Well, well, well, it seems my day is looking up,” Loki murmured.
“What is this? What’s happening to me?” Cameron cried.
“Blood will tell, but I had no idea it would take this form! No idea at all. Not even my children got this!” Loki responded but gave no further explanation of what he had meant.
“You’ve got to help us! Help Liam! I don’t want to freeze him! Seriously!” Cameron wailed.
Loki stopped in mid stride, cocked his head to the side and said, “You won’t if you don’t want to.”
“I didn’t want this!”
“Are you certain?” Loki’s eyebrows rose up.
“I … I was so hot. I felt like I might burn Liam and then …” Cameron’s voice drifted off. “Oh, God, I did want this! But now I want it to stop and it won’t!”
“It’s because you’re upset, Cam. Just calm down and it will be all right,” Liam said.
“I can’t!” Cameron’s eyes were huge as he stared down at Liam. “I – I can’t risk hurting you, Liam! But I –”
“Calm.” Liam made soothing sounds. “Calm, Cam. I’m right here. Everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be fine.”
Cameron’s breathing, which had been frantic, going up into hyperventilating territory, slowed as he and his little brother locked gazes. Loki stood silently by the side of the bed, regarding them with one hand stroking his chin. His expression was unreadable, but he was clearly very interested in this.