by Zach Adams
You already got Donny killed or worse, are you really going to drag your family down too? Rage demanded.
They were better off when you were missing, Panic said. L’æon is only after you, but anyone close is fair game.
Isaac felt a surge of resentment toward the vampire. He hastily scribbled out an apologetic note to Tobias, leaving it on the coffee table.
But wait… We – I… Died. Right? Was that the crime L’æon was talking about? How did I come back? Where the floody buck did I come back from? That frozen forest looked a lot like the one in those two stories, didn’t it? Isaac asked the brain gang. They left him alone to sit with his thoughts.
After slinging his backpack over his shoulder and focusing his attention to ensure his cousin was still sleeping, he started toward the door. A faint glow on the shelf in the corner distracted him. He examined closer and found the source was the white and gold feather on display.
Just like the ones on the ground in the dream, Isaac thought. With a twinge of guilt, he plucked the feather from its case and placed it gently in a pocket on his backpack.
Once outside, it occurred to Isaac that he hadn’t thought about where to go from there. His car had been sacrificed to that damned vampire.
Maybe his hollow slaves turned on him, Rage said darkly.
Unlikely, Panic argued. Whether or not those situations were manufactured by him, that spell-work was no joke. He’s got some serious magical muscle, whether he’s a vampire or an elf.
Putting aside the discussion of L’æon’s possible demise, Isaac tried to focus on a destination. What did he need?
A sandwich. Something fun to consume. Maybe a few more hours’ sleep. Those Book of L’æsälum Pages he left at the library and at home. A warmer jacket. Some sort of vehicle.
Hold on, rewind a bit.
A warmer jacket.
No, before that.
Those Book of L’æsälum pages he left behind.
Now there was a thought. A thought and a two-mile walk through knee-deep snow at 2:30AM. Even at this time of night, there were bound to be police roaming around Anchorage, not to mention whoever else had taken a number to beat Isaac’s bodily fluids out of him. And, apparently, no safe backup plan. So, to the library Isaac went.
Traffic was light, and several streetlights on his path had burned out. Isaac’s limited visibility did little to make him feel safer. The midnight darkness gave him the creeps. After everything he had seen, a childhood distrust of the night rose up in him. The elementary school aged, sheltered boy in his memories felt a smug satisfaction at the fact that he had been right all along about what he saw in his closet after bedtime.
Told you, mom and dad!
But grown-up Isaac had to grapple with the awareness that things from the darkness wanted to, and with minimal difficulty could, destroy everything he cared about. So, perhaps he should pick up his pace a bit.
Music played somewhere in the distance, indistinct but familiar. Isaac looked over his shoulder into the trees nearby. It was too dark to spot anyone, and the sound died after a few seconds. He sped up to a light jog, hoping to cross the street before the light went red.
There’s no traffic and you’re already wanted for murder, idiot. What harm could a little jaywalking do? Rage mocked him. Point taken, screw the lights.
The music piped up again, closer this time. It was difficult to tell at this distance, but it almost sounded to him like Duran Duran’s ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’.
The crossing light ahead changed from a white humanoid to a red hand beside a ten-second countdown. Not that he hadn’t already decided to disregard the legal authority of streetlights, but in Isaac’s mind it seemed too fitting that a literal countdown should pop up while he ran for his life.
10, 9, 8, 7.
Isaac was only several long strides away from the corner. An exasperated growl followed as the new wave crashed around his ears.
6, 5, 4.
Isaac thought he could hear a car nearby. He picked up the pace.
3.
More steps to go!
2.
Late!
1.
Isaac raced to the curb and made it one step into the street before he was forced to give up his balance. An arm clad in a dark beige sweater sleeve was wrapped around his neck, a kneecap stuck into his right kidney. The Duran Duran bandit wasn’t laying any extra blows on his victim, only keeping him pinned to the ground. Isaac flapped about like a Magikarp, but face-down on pavement with a grown person on your back is not an advantageous position for fighting. Isaac’s assailant had him pinned well to the icy asphalt.
Within seconds, a gray limousine with tinted windows and no plates parked illegally in front of the pair. The light now displayed a featureless, white, humanoid shape again, signifying it was now safe to cross the street.
Stupid, lying light, the brain gang said.
A monster stepped out of the driver’s side door. Not a literal monster, like the nightmares Isaac had begun to encounter lately. This monster was a perfectly vanilla human, in the sense that his blood had the temperature of ice cream minus the sweetness and joy. His face was basically a lump of granite wrapped tight in lightly tanned leather. He stood about a foot higher than Isaac would have if he could stand and wore an expensive-looking black suit with a scarlet bowtie, and thick sunglasses.
“Mr. V wants to see you,” Luka the driver growled as he lifted Isaac’s attacker by his beige sweater with one hand, and Isaac with the other. A door in the rear of the limo swung open as he dragged them toward it with little patience or compassion.
“Luka, Luka, Luuukaaaa,” A smooth, Russian-accented voice drawled from inside the car. “Do take better care of our guests, or they won’t be fit for the party. Nor will you.”
Luka stopped for a beat. He lifted the human luggage a bit higher, so their legs didn’t drag on the pavement. He shoved them by the head into the car, letting out a tiny bit of his aggression without disobeying his boss. He then slammed the door behind them and returned to the driver’s seat. Isaac felt the car lurch and speed off into the night. He took an apparently random route through Anchorage, taking a sharp turn every time he saw one. Isaac didn’t have time to guess the destination before he got a good look at the two men sitting opposite him.
Isaac was staring into the faces of Benjamin Schafer and Alexei Volkov.
Beige had his arms crossed, staring out the window with the look of someone with a mouthful of spoiled milk. His eyes were red, and Isaac thought he could see a patch of purple under one of them before he turned away.
Volkov, either not noticing or not caring about the tension, poured three large shots of vodka.
The criminal wore a black vest over a gray silk shirt, the top two buttons undone. The sleeves were rolled to his elbows, showing off a collection of tattoos, a series of small portraits of people Isaac didn’t recognize. A bold letter V was also inked into the right side of his neck. His wavy, sand-colored hair was shorter than Isaac’s, and his lower face was covered in rough stubble. A long, curved scar began under the left of his emotionless, dark eyes, past the man’s ear, and ended near his jawline.
Volkov whistled a cheerful tune while he poured and passed a shot to each of his guests. Beige took his immediately, but Volkov had to force a glass into Isaac’s hand. He held it away from his face as though it was filled with vinegar.
“к нашей дружбе,” Volkov said before draining his glass in a single gulp. He dabbed his knuckles gently against his chin and lower lip to stop some excess that had dribbled out. Beige brought his glass to his lips, trembling at first, but then similarly drained it. Isaac simply watched them.
“Come, Ivy. Have a drink with us!” Volkov exclaimed, throwing an arm around Beige’s shoulders.
“I don’t really do that around other folks anymore,” Isaac replied.
Volkov’s eyes flashed menacingly, before he blinked and became the jolly host once more.
“It’s a pa
rty, Ivy! I have a one-drink minimum, you know. Look, Benny here is following the rules. You enjoy my vodka, don’t you Benny?” As he spoke, he grabbed Beige’s face from under his chin. Beige looked terrified but nodded.
“Stop calling me that, Volkov,” Isaac said. “What do you want? And what is Beige doing here?”
Volkov smiled wide, without any joy. His facial muscles merely ran through the motions, showing off a few too many teeth in the process. The man’s hard, gray eyes gave away the truth that he was mentally compiling the most amusing ways to cure Isaac’s attitude problem for him.
“Strange things happening, you know,” Volkov said absently. “Storms everywhere, more hurricanes than still water on Earth. Cities vanishing, time running out of order. Things appearing in this world, where they don’t belong. Somehow no one sees, but I do. Like a global blind spot.” He paused momentarily as the limo went over a bump in the road.
“Recently my employee Dimitri, he turns up dead.” Volkov reached for the bottle of vodka, pouring himself another huge shot.
“Poor guy. Savaged by some sort of beast. Authorities say some kind of wild cat someone let into the museum. Found against a broken display from one of the Alaskan tribes, I forget the name. The same one you were seen staring at not long before.” Volkov took his drink and his demeanor changed. As the vodka ran through him, his muscles coiled like a series of springs. “Dimitri was a good kid. He was saving to go to school for painting. I have a piece of his work in my office. Beautiful watercolor of Denali.” Volkov locked eyes with Isaac. “And on the news, they say Isaac Falcone savagely killed something like fifty, a hundred people. With some kind of wild beast. In the museum. At first, I was impressed. But then I think, what are the odds two such dear друзья of mine should both be touched by death in the same place?” Volkov stared straight through Isaac, who put up an admirable effort to not look afraid.
“The news is wrong,” Isaac said.
“Oh, bull!” Beige piped up. “Everyone knows you did it, just-”
Beige seemed to lose his train of thought when Volkov’s arm shot through the air like a viper, backhanding him across the face. His glasses were crooked, and he swayed in his seat.
“Do not interrupt, you beige mудак.” Volkov growled. “I’m not done. I was at the library, reading the news when I ran into my next-door neighbor, little Benny Schafer here. He was saying some decidedly foul things to an attractive redhead about one Isaac Falcone. So, I say to him, neighbor, we have this poison Ivy in common. I can find him much quicker than the police if you promise to help me. Perhaps introduce me to your redhead friend as well,” Isaac’s jaw clenched, which amused Volkov. “Eventually, he knew it was the right thing to do.”
Beige squirmed and covered his already swelling lip with his hands. He yelped when Volkov put a hand on his shoulder.
“Of course, Benny forgets to turn the volume on his phone down. So, after all the calls and promises I have to make in order to narrow down the search for you, you almost get away because the придурок loves Duran Duran.”
“You didn’t have to call me while I was following him, either,” Beige said under his breath. He wasn’t silent enough for his new employer’s liking.
Volkov thrust a hand into Beige’s pocket and pulled his cell phone out, beige protective case and all. Beige’s hands made an involuntary twitch toward it, which the gangster noticed.
“Bad things happen to idiots in my business,” Volkov said flatly. He dropped the phone on the floor, pulled a long-barreled silver revolver with a polished wooden handle from under his seat and put a bullet through the device. Isaac jumped in shock at the noise and Beige whimpered. “I have a point, Isaac. It makes little sense to me that you could be a killer. You were always too fragile. But we both know you are involved with things too strange and grand for you to handle alone. So, you get to take old Dimitri’s place. My friendship can carry you a long way.”
Isaac couldn’t deny there were certain benefits to that idea. Taking a deal with the gangster would remove a lot of pressure from him. Not just in the case of the oncoming apocalypse, either. Volkov would ensure he was numb to just about everything. And climbing under the umbrella of the V Organization would bring some formidable perks. Even a supernatural predator would have to go down eventually if enough strung-out thugs with assault weapons were thrown at it.
There was a reason you stopped contacting him, Rage said.
We’re tired, though. It seems like we’ve had two or three lifetimes in the past four days, Panic argued.
Volkov had a sense that his sales pitch was working. It always did, one way or another. In the end, everybody saw things his way, whether they liked it or not. Before Isaac could reply, the tinted window separating them from the driver rolled down.
“Message for you, Mr. V.” Luka said. Volkov scowled.
“You can see I’m busy, Luka,” Volkov told his employee venomously.
“You said tell you when L came through, sir,” Luka replied, indifferent to the apparent danger. His boss sighed.
“So I did, so I did,” Volkov said. “Boys, my employee’s poor manners aside, that was actually fortunate timing. My newest business partner, L, just got me and a plus-one VIP tickets to the New Year’s Eve Ball at the new Rozariu Mazăre up north.”
L? Panic chattered. Maybe L’æon? If Volkov knows what’s been going on, it must be… It’s not as if there’re any other supernatural predators running around Alaska, are there? He’s taking us right to him!
Volkov grinned. “You come with me, Ivy, and you’ll be safe. So will what’s left of your family. Even that kid Donny.”
He knows about Donny too! Rage said.
“Oh my, a wealthy man invited me to the ball, and I don’t even have a dress,” Isaac said in a poor attempt at a feminine Southern accent. “No deal, Al, sorry.”
Isaac put everything he had into a swing at the criminal’s face. It would have floored someone much less accustomed to violence, had it landed. Maybe. Possibly. Isaac really wasn’t that strong, even when he hadn’t been working overtime as the community punching bag, so it probably wouldn’t have done much of anything, really. Volkov turned his head to avoid the jab, grabbed Isaac by the arm, and shoved his face into the window.
“You got some balls since we last met!” Volkov howled in Isaac’s ear. “Maybe you could have killed those people. Maybe not. Won’t make a difference come the New Year.” He pressed a burning cigarette lighter into the side of Isaac’s neck. Our brave hero made a screeching, choking, gurgling noise which he would prefer not to be described here in any sort of detail.
“That reminds me, Ivy, how’s your sister?” Volkov asked. Then he clubbed Isaac in the cranium with the handle of his revolver. On the upside, Isaac got some much-needed sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One: The V Organization
?2018?
Isaac opened his eyes. The lights were off, but a slim beam of moonlight snuck through the dense sheet of falling snow beyond the windows near the ceiling. He attempted to move to get a look at his surroundings but was unable to do more than flop on the concrete floor. The room had a musky, nostril-stinging smell that was equal parts engine oil and blood. Isaac figured that meant it was either a garage or some sort of murder dungeon. Neither would have been a surprise, knowing Volkov.
Isaac tried to stand up. Keyword is “tried”. The attempt taught him the hard way that his limbs had been bound at the wrists and ankles. There was nothing underneath to catch his fall, even an old wooden chair. That meant one less cliché to grapple with but offered little relief to the body hitting the floor. He twisted at the last second to avoid further abuse to his skull. As he accepted his position flat on the cold concrete, his labored breath made wisps of steam, just barely visible in the darkness.
Volkov, you dick, Isaac thought.
Isaac didn’t get to think any further. A heavy steel door swung open, a bulky silhouette standing behind it. Some light from the other side cre
pt through, but the figure was so large that most was blocked. The new arrival flipped a switch on the wall. Bright fluorescent lights sprung to light, revealing the figure to be Luka, Volkov’s driver and doorman. The granite-skulled gangster stared at Isaac with cold indifference. He had swapped his tailored suit for nurse’s scrubs and camouflage pants, a short apron, and latex gloves.
Terrified, Isaac scanned the room around him. Definitely a garage. A rusted husk of a car sat lopsided on an extended jack. Tools of all shapes and sizes hung on pegs in the wall. Isaac couldn’t have named more than a handful - that was Chloe and dad’s territory. Had he known he would one day be hogtied in an auto shop, he would have listened more closely rather than playing video games with Donny. A locked trapdoor with blotchy orange stains was a few feet away, shut with a fist-sized lock. The smell of blood seemed to come from there.
Luka the nurse pulled a tablecloth from a workbench on wheels. He dragged the table to Isaac’s spot. A shelf underneath was lined with a handheld saw, a small hammer, a battery-powered drill, and a pair of garden shears. The top was covered with delicate medical instruments, laid out side by side in order of size. There was a closed drawer on either side of the table.
“Hey there Luka, let’s not do anything I’ll regret, now,” Isaac said. The hulk drew a white handkerchief from one of his many pockets. Without being forceful, but still being far from gentle, he stuffed the cloth in Isaac’s mouth. Then he produced a large glass bottle full of clear liquid and a thick cotton pad from nowhere. He poured a liberal amount onto the pad, took a huge swig for himself, and then pressed the pad firmly onto Isaac’s exposed wounds.
Holy shit he is torturing me with liquid fire! Every nerve in Isaac’s system screamed. It certainly felt that way. Every cut and scratch he had sustained over the past few days burned wherever Luka touched them. Isaac clamped his jaw on the wad of cloth in his mouth and struggled against his restraints. Finally, Luka stopped and wrapped Isaac’s limbs in gauze.
“What the sideways fuck was that?” Isaac demanded once the handkerchief had been removed. The gangster rattled his bottle at him.