by Jim Heskett
“Good afternoon,” Victor said. “Do you know who I am?”
One of the men, a chubby and bug-eyed runt, stared, with a blank look on his face. But the other man and the woman both nodded.
“You are the leader,” the woman said, “since the mistress died.”
Victor nodded.
“Since the mistress was martyred,” said the non-chubby man, as a correction.
“We do not believe in martyrs,” Victor said. “Martyrs work for some other-worldly goal, which is a waste of energy. We don’t subscribe to the false hope of an afterlife.”
The slim man bowed his head.
Victor waved this one forward. “Take off your shirt.”
The man paused but did as he was told. Despite being slim, his flesh was soft and droopy. He hadn’t taken care of his body, which made Victor already doubt this man’s worthiness.
“Hold out your arms,” Victor said.
The man hesitated again a few beats but did it anyway. That reluctance was another strike against the recruit. Victor withdrew a small blade from his pocket, as well as a lighter. He flicked the lighter and held it under the knife, waving it back and forth along the length of the blade. Victor checked the man’s reaction, saw fear in his eyes.
When he could feel the heat coming off the knife, Victor snatched the man by the hand and pressed the flat of the blade against his wrist. The smell of burning flesh filled Victor’s nostrils and made his heart thump against his chest. He couldn’t tell if he had an erection, but suspected he did.
The man seethed, writhed, tried to get away. Victor held on to his wrist to see if he’d calm down, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t. Victor let go of the man and slammed the knife onto the table. “You are not worthy. This is only the first of many rites, and if you aren’t willing to accept this…”
“Please,” said the slim man, clutching his reddened wrist with his other hand.
“Why?” Victor said. “We do not fear death. We do not fear pain. Tell me why I should allow someone who is made up of nothing but fear?”
The man was on the verge of tears. “Because this is the only option I have left.”
“That’s not my problem,” Victor said. “But you can still be useful.”
On the table sat a small plastic cup. Victor snatched the man by the wrist again and sliced the blade across the back of his hand. Red filled the gash immediately, and he yanked on the hand until it was over the cup. As the man whined and weeped, drops of his blood spilled into the cup, barely covering the bottom.
Victor released the man’s hand. “Now go, if you want to walk out of here alive.”
With a glance at the other two, the slim man scurried out of the room. Norman would stop him and make sure he wasn’t able to speak of what he’d seen here. But the other two recruits didn’t need to witness his punishment.
Victor picked up the cup of blood and swirled it, watching the meager burgundy contents swish. “You,” he said, pointing at the chubby man, “drink this.”
The man took one look at the glass, shuddered, and fled the room.
Victor sighed. What a waste of time. Then he eyed the last recruit, the woman standing calmly as she had since she’d walked in. He’d been checking her reactions as he burned and bled the weak man, and she hadn’t made a peep.
He waved her forward, and she stepped to him without any fear in her eyes. This was promising.
“Why do you want to join us?” he said.
“I’ve played their game for most of my life,” she said, holding her head high. “The world has never done anything but burn me.”
“And now you want to burn the world?” he said.
“I used to work on Wall Street. Then I was a scavenger and a hoarder. I’ve been many things, seen great evil like LaVey and his Five Suns, I’ve seen men rape and pillage and think only of what they could take from the world. Now I want to see rebirth. The world is full of poison and it needs to be flushed.”
Victor had heard many pitches from initiates, some much more eloquent and passionate, but something about the fearlessness in this woman’s eyes intrigued him.
“How would you flush the world?” he said.
“With fire.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“A few years ago, I befriended a group of older women at a market in New York. They became my family. We spent all our time together. Then, they betrayed me because they were scared of a wicked man’s power, and I barely made it away from them alive. Family means nothing to most people anymore.”
“That’s true,” he said. “Fear makes the weak abandon their most closely held convictions as easily as rain washes away gutter leaves. Is there anything else you wish to tell me?”
“I also have a cache of weapons I can donate to the cause. Guns, ammunition, and explosives.”
Victor smiled. Most initiates came to him with praise and promises of allegiance. Few were smart enough to make an offering.
She held out her wrist. “I’m not desperate, Leader. I’m just tired.”
He flicked the lighter to reheat the blade. “What is your name?”
“Cassie,” she said.
“Cassie, there will be many trials over the next few days. If you persist, you will join us. If you falter, you will die. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He pressed the blade against her forearm. She winced but held firm, pursing her lips to fight back the pain.
Victor held her gaze, and she didn’t relent. This recruit was going to work out. He could feel it.
9
Sutter helped Cassie collect her belongings at the booth and escorted her through the aisle to the area where they were to meet Zach, Dave, and Isabelle. Even though it had only been a few months since they’d last spoken, Cassie seemed different. Harder. But Sutter knew better than to pry into her personal affairs. No telling what she’d been through since moving to Philadelphia.
As they waited, Cassie eyed him. “You’re probably wondering if I’m going to keep my word.”
This took him by surprise. “Actually, I wasn’t. I assumed you would.”
She nodded. “Most people don’t anymore.”
“But I do,” he said. “I’m not one of those people. We helped you, and you agreed to help us. That was the deal.”
Dave and Isabelle emerged from a row of booths, and Sutter waved them over. Everyone shook hands and said their hellos, but Sutter noticed the hesitation on Isabelle’s face. In the limited time he’d known her, Isabelle seemed to be the trust-has-to-be-earned sort. Probably for the best, since trustworthiness was a commodity in short supply.
Then Zach appeared with a sneer on his face from behind a gregarious man hawking slightly-used underwear. Sutter frowned and shook his head, then he checked Cassie for her reaction. She wore the same blank expression as she had when meeting Dave and Isabelle. She truly did seem different.
“Hi, Cassie,” Zach said as he joined the group. Hands on his hips in a poor attempt to mask his scorn. “You’re looking well.”
She didn’t reply, and an uncomfortable silence floated amid the general rumble of market babble for a few seconds. The man selling the underwear began juggling pairs of socks, to a small clattering of applause.
“Are the supplies at your house?” Sutter asked Cassie.
“No,” she said, “I had to move everything a couple months ago. Had some sketchy neighbors and some break-ins nearby. The goods are in a much safer place now.”
“Lead on,” Sutter said as he waved her forward. The rest of them followed suit.
“We do need to stop by my house real quick,” Cassie said once they were outside. She led them the few blocks back to Fulton Street, then once in front of her door, she paused. “Wait outside. I have a roommate, and she doesn’t like people she doesn’t know coming in.”
“No problem,” Sutter said.
As Cassie left them there, some clouds rolled in and light rain began to fall. Zach cleared his throat
with a deliberate grunt.
“What?” Sutter said.
“She doesn’t seem strange to you?”
“Well, she’s always seemed strange to you,” Sutter said.
Isabelle came face to face with Zach. “If everything is fine here, then everything is fine. We need her to get weapons so we’re going to be polite and not cause trouble, okay? The clock is ticking and we came all this way, so don’t screw it up, please.”
Zach turned his hands up to the sky and adopted an innocent expression. “Hey, I’m not going to cause any trouble.”
Isabelle tossed a look at Sutter for good measure. Things had been a little tense since Sutter had changed the group’s plan to go confront the Infinity in New Jersey, but they would come around eventually. He felt confident about that. If Mrs. Rappaport could deliver on her promise to rally some troops to the cause, then they would see that all of this had been worthwhile.
A few minutes later, Cassie came out of the front door, now wearing a jacket. But Sutter noticed the added girth around her chest didn’t seem to match the size of the jacket. “Are you wearing a vest?”
She nodded. “The goods are safe, but not in the safest place, if that makes any sense. I know it looks all sleepy and quiet, but Philly is a rough town.”
“Don’t suppose you have Kevlar for all of us?” Dave said.
“Stick close to me,” she said. “You don’t have anything to worry about. I’m just the overly cautious type.”
***
Isabelle and her four companions walked east, toward the river. Cassie had said they were headed for a self-storage facility at the pier. Also that they’d have to pass through a couple gang neighborhoods to get there, which didn’t trouble Isabelle one bit.
On Catharine Street, after they’d only been walking a few minutes, some locals took notice. A group of five guys hovering near a bus stop, tossing dice against a cardboard box on the sidewalk.
“Heads up,” Sutter said as the guys left the bus stop and skulked toward them.
Isabelle reached into her back pocket and took out her pistol, but Cassie put a hand on her wrist and pushed the gun out of sight. “Let me handle this,” Cassie said.
One of the bus stop guys, a grizzled man with a sizable gut and torn-up leather pants, led the way. Their group and Isabelle’s group faced off on opposite sides of the street. The five ruffians stood shoulder to shoulder.
Then Cassie stepped into the street and the grizzled man joined her. Isabelle half-expected a tumbleweed to come rolling along the road and to hear the sounds of spurs clinking against the pavement.
“Cassie,” Sutter said, but she waved him off.
“Hold up a second,” said the man. “Are you guys lost, or something? I don’t remember inviting any of you onto our street.”
Cassie squared her shoulders. “We don’t need your permission. Is there some reason you’re blocking our path?”
The grizzled man shot a look at his companions, then smiled at Cassie. “That depends. Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
“You don’t remember me, do you?” Cassie said. She was gritting her teeth and clenching her hands so tightly Isabelle could see the veins sticking out on her wrists.
The man cocked his head, eyeing her up and down. “Never seen you before.”
“We don’t want any trouble,” Dave said.
The grizzled man sucked on his teeth, still looking at Cassie. “That true?”
In a flash, Cassie whipped out a gun and shot the grizzled man in the head. The blast knocked him back and he landed on top of the cardboard box, flattening it. Before his companions could react, she shot two more. One in the chest, the other on the shoulder. The one who’d been shot in the chest fell to the ground, dead. The other rolled on the street, howling as blood leaked out from the hole in his jacket.
The other two ran off as quickly as their legs would carry them.
“Fuck me,” Zach said. “What the hell did you do that for?”
“They weren’t going to let us pass,” she said, “and that asshole tried to mug me when I first moved here.”
“Animals,” Isabelle said.
“When I didn’t have anything worth taking,” Cassie said, “he grabbed my boob and twisted it so hard it was purple for weeks. I broke his nose and promised myself the next time I saw him, I’d kill him. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t have, but the fact that he didn’t remember me sealed it.”
When the shock wore off, Isabelle approached the leather pants man and rifled through his pockets, as the man who’d been shot in the shoulder continued to howl and crawl across the street.
Cassie raised her pistol at the injured man, but Sutter stepped in front of her. “No, Cassie,” he said, “let’s go. We’re in a hurry.”
She spat at the man trying to stem the tide of blood coming from his arm. “I’ll be back for you, you piece of shit.”
Dave put a hand on Isabelle’s elbow, and she offered him a look that was supposed to be comforting, but even she was rattled by what she’d just seen. This Cassie woman was nuts.
They left the injured man there in the street and pressed on toward the river. A couple of faces looked down from the windows of buildings above. Years ago, people might have raised those windows and shouted about the commotion. They might have expressed an opinion about shooting a group of men in the street. Now, people kept to themselves, possibly they entertained ideas about being the first to scurry down there and see if the dead contained anything of value in their pockets.
Everyone had turned into raccoons, hiding in the light and foraging for scraps.
Near the water, Cassie pointed at a large warehouse with a sign above that read Pier 40 Self Storage.
“Do we all need to go inside?” Sutter said.
This seemed to catch Cassie off guard. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Someone should stay outside, just in case. To keep a lookout.”
Cassie shook her head. “There’s a lot to carry. The quicker we can get this done the safer we’ll all be. Those losers back there who ran away? You can bet they’ll come back with more, looking for us.”
Sutter relented and they all entered the self-storage through a small door at the top of a set of concrete stairs. They entered into the second floor of the building, onto a small raised platform overlooking the open warehouse-type room. Below, rows of storage containers like little garages lined the area, at least a hundred of them total. A maze of pathways snaked between the rows.
“Follow me,” Cassie said and led them down another set of stairs into the maze. First Isabelle, then Zach, then Sutter and Dave followed in a line.
Cassie drew her gun.
“Are you expecting someone?” Sutter said.
“You never know,” she said.
Cassie picked up the pace. She turned into one row, then another. Something about this wasn’t right, and so Isabelle took out her own pistol.
Then Cassie turned a corner, and when Isabelle rounded that corner, Cassie was gone.
“What the hell?” Isabelle said. Everyone stopped as the room went quiet.
“I’m up ahead,” Cassie said, her voice nearby. “Take a left at the next intersection.”
Isabelle flicked her head at Sutter, and he also drew his gun. She could read the worry on his face. With a deep breath to still the rumble in her stomach, she flicked off the safety on her weapon.
When she hit the next intersection of garages and turned left, there was no one there.
And that’s when she heard the gun blast. She spun in time to see blood pouring from Zach’s neck as he staggered and slammed against the metal door of one of the storage garages. Behind them, Cassie stood with a bald man, with scarred and burned tissue up and down his arms.
Infinity.
The man whipped out a machete, screamed an awful, caterwauling screech, then lunged forward.
Cassie raised her still-smoking gun, and Isabelle reacted. She put a bullet in Cassie’s chest. Her vest
would keep the bullet from piercing her skin, but the force of the blast still knocked her back a few steps.
The burned man was coming straight for Sutter. He managed to get his gun up and fire off a shot into the attacker’s stomach, but not before the man was able to swing the machete. Sutter raised his hand, blocking the blade with his forearm. Isabelle watched the blade sink into Sutter’s arm, as blood splattered both of them.
Sutter squeezed the trigger again, hitting the burned man square in the temple.
Dave, meanwhile, had been scrambling to cross through the scrum to get to Isabelle. Cassie was recovering and raised her gun. Isabelle watched her line of sight, and realized Cassie was aiming for Dave. But Isabelle couldn’t fire without hitting him.
She screamed for Dave to drop, but everything was happening so fast, he either didn’t hear her or didn’t understand. Instead, she fell to the floor and shot at Cassie’s feet. One shot, two, both misses. Then she raised the gun a few inches and sent a bullet into Cassie’s thigh.
Cassie dropped her gun and clasped her hands over the flow of blood rushing out of her thigh onto the painted concrete floor. She bellowed and gasped as she struggled in vain to press against the wound.
Isabelle did a quick check of her companions. Sutter was leaning up against a garage, holding onto his bleeding arm. Dave was rushing to him. Zach was sprawled on the floor, his eyes rolled back into his head.
Dead.
Isabelle popped in a fresh clip and stomped across the warehouse to Cassie, who was still breathing even though she was in the middle of a considerable pool of red. She pointed the gun at Cassie’s face. “What the fuck did you do?”
Cassie smiled through the blood. “My last test. I got one out of four of you, but that doesn’t matter now. It’s good enough. Blessed are the destroyers of false hope.”
Her breathing quickened, then slowed. Her face changed as she died, first resolute, then fearful. Then blank.