Flawless. It was art of a largely unseen quality in this discipline, and he turned the codpiece over gently, almost as if handling a new lamb, admiring the sullen gleam of the wine-colored leather, the metal thread holding everything perfectly with nary a scratch on the heavy hide. But it was the ring of custom-crafted studs surrounding the open crotch that shone like nightshade, each dense, bronze stud forged separately and then freed from burrs with hand tooling. There were twenty-nine in all, a symbolic number mocking the amount of years he waited until he began to feed his true, inner passion. He felt an awakening in his groin, and the pressure against his linen pants quickly grew nearly intolerable as his hand moved to his lap to reassure his cock that soon, they would begin their night’s work. “Oh, they will have to wait their turn when I wield this. Yes, all of the soft ones will give me a turn.” He spoke quietly, his words clotted with arrogance and lust.
“I see your newest addition has arrived. Mind if I give you my professional opinion?” She asked him this with the familiarity of an old friend, and he was startled, but only for an instant.
Enoch leapt back in his chair, drawing himself up as he began to open his mouth and berate the woman who dared interrupt him in his office. That speech was as one of her gloved hands snatched the codpiece from his desk and the other struck him on the temple, a deafening blow that made his vision flash white as he sagged to the floor, slipping from his chair without resistance.
“Now, Enoch. I asked you nicely. Those are hardly the manners one would expect from a doctor, are they?”
I’ve been cuckolded in my own space. Who is this creature? Looking up from the floor, he saw a stunning woman in her thirties, dripping with confidence and wealth. Her brown eyes were flecked with gold, and she had her dark hair pulled away from a face that Enoch was certain could make men cater to her every wish. She extended a regal hand to him, waving for him to accept it and rise, but as he reached for her, she kicked him once, hard, in the testicles, crushing the wind from him in a shocked gasp. He doubled sideways, white hot pain gripping him from balls to brain, and through it all, he heard her calmly speak to him as one would address a naughty dog.
“Gather your things, Doctor. Your erstwhile careers are over, and I have need of you. If, that is, you prove your worth to me. Have you been to New Orleans?”
For the first time, Enoch knew true fear. While he struggled to a sitting position, she knelt, looking at the leatherwork that had dominated his thoughts so soundly she had slipped into his office unseen. Or had she?
“May I arise, Miss—?”
“Elizabeth. You may address me as Elizabeth, if we’re being familiar. I will inform you when we are not being familiar. You would do well to pay attention to my tone. So much can be gleaned from inflection, don’t you think?” She smiled wickedly at him.
“Yes, Elizabeth.” He recovered some shred of confidence quickly and made as if to stand, but her hand lashed down and out, striking him soundly in the mouth, and he fell again, only this time he had the sense to remain still.
Seeing his intention to stay on the floor, she turned to the door and tossed the codpiece at him, striking him in the face. “Bring that. I will have need of it later, on the plane. Your training will begin immediately.” She paused for a thoughtful moment. “You may want to consider some stretching exercises, Enoch. I intend to shed light on your innermost secrets.” She laughed a musical, repugnant noise from a beast that is in complete control of an underling.
It was a sound that Enoch knew very well indeed, but from the other side, and he stood, shivering. He did not think that she was referring to his past, and his body began to anticipate a most unwelcome night.
21
Florida: Ring
I sat in the familiar surroundings of the Butterfly, with patrons all around me enjoying their lunch as much as I was or more, because of the special today, Ko Ka Mu, a cinnamon pork thigh with Mirin whiskey, anise, and other mysterious elements. Upon sitting down, Boon informed me that I had ordered the very last serving available. It was just after noon, and I counted myself among the lucky when Boon set the fragrant plate, steaming with aromatic wonder, before me.
“What did hubby do to this pork?” I asked around a mouthful so tender it surrendered with a whisper.
She laughed and waved her finger at me in mock reprimand before bustling away with the signature tinkling of her many gold bangles.
“I thought I might bribe you into letting me join up for lunch.” Suma’s voice was devilish.
I laughed and bowed from the waist while seated. “Love to have lunch with you. I didn’t know you were here this weekend?”
Suma is an emergency room physician in Orlando but spends a great deal of time with her family, which includes me and my partners. Since she also saved my life when Elizabeth nearly sent me to the nether a year earlier, I felt not only a debt of gratitude, but genuine affection for her. She was wryly funny, smart, and the only real temptation among all the women in the world that I’ve ever known since I paired off into my unusual but lasting relationship with Wally and Risa.
“Spur-of-the-moment trip. I had a three-day weekend, and the girls and I are taking the boat out.”
“Wait, what? I didn’t know you were going fishing.” This was news to me.
“Oh, we’re not fishing,” she began in a soothing tone, one I knew indicated that I was about to be cut out of something fun. “Risa texted me and asked if I wanted to go with her and Wally to the Las Olas Art Festival. She promised it would involve boat drinks, lots of people watching, and good food, so—here I am.”
I grumbled something about ungrateful lovers and ownership of the boat, but she cheerily popped another stuffed orange in my mouth and patted my hand in a way that made it clear there was no room for me on my own boat. It was damned near impossible to argue with someone who had given you the gift of life after an attack by a demon, and she was milking it for all it was worth.
“I guess I can hang out with Gyro, or see if Kevin wants to play ball.”
“The stud priest?” Suma asked, leering just a tiny bit at my surprise. “What, don’t you think I know about the newest member of the ‘holy shit, immortal beasties are all around!’ club? We discussed it online the other night while you were making pizza.” She laughed again, and I found it incredibly endearing, especially considering the fact that it was delivered with a mild insult, but then, Suma had that effect on me, and many people, I suspected.
“Yes,” I began, “he is, as you say, a handsome man, and I am pleased to have the friendship of someone who takes my athletic pursuits seriously.”
“You mean we should all give proper respect to your intense hour of basketball followed by beer, chicken wings, and a nap? Yes, I can see how you must feel shortchanged at our disregard for your hardcore training regimen.” She concluded by sticking out her tongue at me, a trait she doubtless had acquired from Wally, who was permanently eleven years old. Mentally anyway.
I finished the pork and motioned that we should walk out together. “Hit the dock with me for some sun? The beast would love to see you.” Gyro completely lost his mind when Suma visited, making me question his value as security from anyone who took the time to learn the perfect spot on his chest for scratching.
“Yes! I plan on convincing the girls to go to Strata tonight for dinner. I must lay eyes on Patroclus—and yes, before you ask, I know about his relationship, and no, I’m not scared of Achilles. I just want to eat, have some great wine, and ogle the beautiful lover of a legendary killer.” She was emphatic and rather blasé about the whole thing, leading me to believe it must have been a tough week in the harried chaos of the emergency room. So, arm in arm we made our way through the tables to the heat of the day and an afternoon carefully avoiding anything that might look like work.
22
Florida: Ring
It was three days before I saw Kevin again, and we met, by his request, at Hollywood Memorial Hospital. He was waiting outside for me
, and when I shook his hand I noticed that he seemed a bit grim.
“You a regular here?” I asked.
“I am. Sometimes, it can be for very joyous events, like a birth or a successful recovery, but more often than not I’m the last person anyone wants to see here, for obvious reasons.”
There wasn’t much else to say, so we walked in through the automatic doors, and he motioned for me to follow him. After a quiet elevator ride, we turned again past a nurses’ station and stopped before an unremarkable room labeled 259. Without knocking, Kevin walked in and waved me forward into air that was a bit stale, too warm, and carrying the light scents of urine and disinfectant, a smell that is nearly universal to every hospital I’ve ever been in. On the single bed, a woman lay sleeping, incredibly tiny under the austere white blankets, which were drawn all the way up to her birdlike neck. Her face was deeply lined, and her hair was cotton white, thin, and pasted to her head with the disregard so many terminally ill people seem to acquire when the end is near, particularly those without family.
“Sit down, Ring.” Kevin pulled out a chair for me, and I sat in the stuffy room. He pulled his own chair closer to the bed and took the tiny, doll-like hand closest to him in both of his upright palms, like holding a precious relic, and to my utter surprise, he began to sing. His voice was soft, and he sang a hymn I thought I should know, but then I grasped that it was in musical, lilting Latin, and it was heartbreakingly sweet. When he was done, I saw the corners of the woman’s mouth curl with the ghost of a smile, and then he stood up and kissed the parchment of her forehead before we left without another word.
We walked directly out into the sun, not stopping to speak to anyone despite Kevin being hailed repeatedly. He didn’t seem as sad, somehow, and then he said, “Would you like to know who that is?”
“Yes, of course.” I could not process what I was seeing, but I knew it was an act of generosity that was almost uncomfortable to witness.
“So would I.” He smiled at my surprise. “She’s a Jane Doe, abandoned a month ago. She’ll die here alone, unless you count my visits. I convinced the Church to pay for her care, and they agreed, but it’s a bare minimum, and she doesn’t really have many lucid moments. I think she might be from New England or the upper Midwest; it’s just a feeling based on her hair and her skin. She looks like she was middle-class, at least, but hardworking. At some point she broke a couple of her fingers, and she is left-handed. It’s not much of a story, but it’s something.”
“How did you find her? Where did you find her?” I asked.
“Here. She was brought in from some hotel. I think she was dumped, a sort of ‘let’s take Grandma to Florida for vacation and not bring her back’ type of thing, just as uncaring as someone abandoning an unwanted old dog on a dead-end road. I was furious, but then I thought that at the very least I would see to it she was warm and dry and comfortable. It’s the limits of what I can—what my Church, rather, can do, I should say. Some of the ladies from our auxiliary come by and read to her or wash her feet, things like that, all little acts of service in an inhuman reality. She really likes singing, though. That’s the one gift that she seems to respond to more than anything.” His voice was simmering with frustration.
“I’m sorry that you have to bear so many burdens.” I didn’t know what to say. I felt incredibly small and a bit selfish in the face of his generosity.
He gave a wry smile. “Don’t be, Ring. You carry things I can’t measure. Given your life, I don’t know that I would be strong enough to resist baser instincts. Being powerful makes some people bad.” I understood that sentiment intimately since I dealt with it every day. By now we were leaning against his car, out of the sun in the parking structure where we were surrounded by fumes, a cacophony of noise, and tons of concrete. It was anonymity in the open, and it was a perfect place to discuss matters that were unusual or even dangerous.
“You know what I’ve been wondering about?” Kevin asked in a mild, perplexed tone. “Joseph, Delphine’s assistant. He concerns me.”
“How so?” I was confused by the derivation of our topic.
“You mentioned that he’s in a sort of biological and spiritual free fall, right?” he asked me, searching for something.
“That’s an accurate description. He’s decaying, we think. He didn’t transform properly, or his body is rejecting the changes that proximity to Delphine is causing him, in a sort of system-wide crash. He isn’t dying specifically; he’s shifting into something that he does not want to be. Soon, Delphine is going to be faced with a difficult choice.”
Kevin winced and said, “Like an old dog. Like Jane Doe. Except Delphine, if what you say about visibility is true, well, she cannot afford to go to a country road and turn him loose; she’ll have to see to his end personally. Euthanizing someone she presumably cares about. I don’t envy her that, I admit, but that isn’t my personal worry. I’m actually more concerned about you . . . and Risa and Wally. I think that it should be obvious why, but I’d rather that you tell me yourself in your own words.”
Now I was truly perplexed, and my face must have seemed genuine enough that Kevin decided to prompt me. “Your age, Ring, what is it?”
And then it became clear. He was asking if we were susceptible to Joseph’s descent, a very astute observation despite being assured we were not due to our immunity to fear. I answered as honestly as I knew how. “I’m nearly forty, but I know I don’t look it, and yes, before you ask, time is going—well, not really backward but as close to it as possible. We’ve all become a bit more capable at some skills, in addition to remaining physically unchanged, at least in terms of our calendar age.”
He whistled soundlessly, shocked by the fact that immortality wasn’t just a rumor, or a part of his faith, it was something that was happening, provably, and in close proximity to him at that moment. It was a lot to process, but I went on. “As to whether we deteriorate like Joseph or others we’ve heard about, I can’t say. I think—or rather, Risa has deduced that corruption is both rare and complicated. It seems random, but I don’t think it is, only that we haven’t been able to render a working hypothesis about the nuts and bolts of changing into something other than a true human. I do know one thing about this possible fate. I trust my instincts, and they tell me that physical perversion, like what is happening to Joseph, can be made worse by having evil close at hand. Does that mean Delphine is evil? No, I really don’t think of her that way, despite the occasional flare of jealousy brought on by our history.” He raised an eyebrow at that, but I ignored it. Some things weren’t meant for chummy confessions with a friendly priest, at least not yet, and I also didn’t want to feel like I was bragging, although the temptation was strong. Delphine really was that good at her chosen occupation. “I look at my relationships as saving me. It keeps all of us strong, and whether or not I can prove it, it seems at some cellular level to be a type of armor that lets us navigate the treachery of the Undying without being victims ourselves. Does that seem plausible?”
He laughed and I realized how ridiculous the question might seem. “Ring, the term plausible doesn’t apply to many things about your life, but yes, I understand the logic of what you’ve been able to say, which is actually fairly impressive given the variables you’re dealing with. I’m satisfied that you aren’t becoming—corrupted? So, consider the interrogation complete for now.” He clapped me on the shoulder and we said our goodbyes, and in minutes I was back on the dock, wondering what would happen if any of the three of us began to change for the worse, and for the first time in my recent memory, I prayed.
Risa shook me awake from a nap in which I was dreaming of food, and when I opened my eyes, Wally was attempting to shove an entire prosciutto and egg sandwich into her mouth, with varying degrees of success if the judges were scoring on cleanliness.
Risa held out a cup of coffee to me, patted my face lightly, and asked in a bright voice, “Breakfast for dinner?”
“Oh, God, yes. Thanks.” I took
the cup and sat up, taking in the sight of a kitchen in utter chaos. Batter from some attempt at waffles decorated no less than half of every surface I could see, which meant that Wally had been in charge of mixing. The sizzle of bacon echoed from a skillet, and there was a stack of orange halves that had been squeezed to a flattened state, doubtless by Risa’s efficient, merciless little hands. There are few things in the world that I like more than breakfast for dinner, and we treat the event like a national holiday.
And then, with the jarring proof that all good things must come to an end, Wally leaned against the counter and said, “We were talking while you were being a lazy man and sleeping during the day.”
I froze in place. Nothing good could come from this, and I ran down a mental checklist of things that could be unleashed upon me with the specific purpose of ruining my meal. Rent checks and an interlude with Annalise Wimple? Wrong week.
I critiqued and discarded several possible punishment for a transgression I was not aware of and simply shrugged and asked, “What did I do now?”
Risa laughed while Wally resumed her impersonation of a buzz saw, assaulting the last of her sandwich with gruesome focus. They both came to sit next to me, and Gyro thumped his tail twice in approval of all of us being in proper range to give him attention, when Risa asked me, “Kevin called us, and he told us about his concerns and how you admirably answered his questions honestly in a way that convinces him we won’t turn into cannibalistic ghouls over the weekend. Well-done, lad.” I saluted her with my cup and stretched my legs. “He’s too smart for his own good.”
“I still don’t like it, but whatever,” Wally groused, and I was thoroughly confused.
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