Out in the living room, Alex had crossed the front door and was now peering out the window to the left of it with the same uneasy caution he had with its twin to the right. Still nothing. Had he been hearing things? In fact, what had he heard? He didn’t have any way to describe it, but it was a sound that was more felt than heard—the sound of disturbance, like the way a settling house tells you someone is moving around upstairs. That sense of disturbance unsettled him greatly, because while it was easy to write off a sound as misheard, it was much more difficult to write off a feeling as misfelt.
As he stood there, Alex resolved to have a serious conversation with Rain about rethinking the gun policy in this house. He understood why his brother didn’t like them, but he also knew he’d feel a hell of a lot better right now with a gun in his hand rather than a knife—even though he had never actually fired one before. Glancing down at that knife now, Alex squeezed it tightly and went to the door. He raised the blade in one hand as he grabbed the knob with the other, and he slowly started inching the front door open.
He had gotten it maybe two inches open—just enough for the midday light to cut a bright, thin line diagonally across the room—when something on the other side slammed it into him, hard. He stumbled back, reeling, but for a brief moment thought he would retain his balance…until a man roughly the size of a small gorilla burst inside and rammed Alex’s chest with his shoulder, removing any hope that he might stay on his feet. The next thing he knew, he was on his back on the hardwood floor. Somehow, he had the presence of mind to keep his hold on the knife, but he quickly realized it wasn’t going to do him much good when he looked up to see that large man pointing a sawed-off shotgun at him.
“Hi there,” Cleric said, peering down at Alex from under his wide-brimmed hat. “I believe you have a house guest who I will be taking off your hands now.”
Alex felt his jaw tremble and his lips try to bow downward, the last ghosts of childhood impulse to cry in the face of confrontation. He bit down on the corners of his mouth and took a sharp breath through his nose, taking firm hold of his composure before daring to speak. “You’ve got the wrong house,” he finally said.
“That so?” Cleric asked.
“It is,” Alex replied, and propped himself up on his elbows. “So why don’t you get the hell out of here before I show you out?” The final word wavered and he had to bite down inside his mouth again.
Cleric smirked approvingly. “You know, young man, most days I’d admire a pair like that on a kid your age.” The smirk disappeared. “But I’m in a no-bullshit kind of mood right now. So here’s how this is going to work: you have until the count of five to produce the girl, or I’m going to blow off one of your extremities. You ever seen what a twelve-gauge does to a limb at this distance?”
Alex swallowed hard and didn’t answer.
“One.”
Amelie’s eyes widened. Her heart began trip-hammering in her chest.
“Two.”
Alex pushed himself up a little further, his free hand flat on the floor now, and one of his feet planted as well.
“Three.”
Cleric raised the shotgun, taking aim at the young man’s left foot.
“Four.”
Alex’s muscles went taught, ready to spring at the last moment, to go for the man’s thigh with the knife.
“Fi—”
“Stop!” Amelie cried as she burst through the basement door, stumbling and nearly falling in the process.
Cleric’s eyes flicked towards her to be sure she was unarmed, and were back on Alex before the boy could take any advantage of the distraction. “Tsk, tsk,” he said, “‘Wrong house.’ You lied to me, young man. But, I suppose I’ll let you keep your limbs anyway.” He adjusted his aim, pointing the gun at Alex’s face.
Suddenly, an eldritch screech ripped through the living room.
Amelie screamed and recoiled in horror at the sight of the Visgaer standing in the kitchen doorway, its long claws gripping the doorframe, head barely clearing the opening. Alex felt his heart lurch in his chest, somehow feeling exponentially more terror than he had been just seconds before.
But Cleric looked surprised in a different sort of way. “Are you sure?”
The Visgaer issued an irregular series of clicks from its throat.
“Well then,” Cleric said with a bemused chuckle. He swept back his long duster and slipped his shotgun into a holster strapped to his leg, then returned his attention to Alex. “So are you gonna come at me with that thing or just lie there all day?”
Alex blinked. “Excuse me?”
“The knife, kid. Now’s your chance. Show me what you can do with it.”
“Um…okay,” Alex said, deeply confused. Moving slowly, he started pushing himself to his feet. Halfway up, he suddenly lunged from a kneeling position, thrusting the knife at Cleric’s abdomen.
Cleric sidestepped almost casually and caught hold of Alex’s arm. “Gut shot, huh? Damn, kid. You don’t fool around.” With a twist of his arm, Cleric drew a pained cry from Alex and watched as the knife fell from his hand. He then cracked the young man between the eyes with an elbow to daze him, and finally yanked him into a tight headlock, cutting off his air supply.
“Alex!” Amelie yelled, and started towards them, her eyes set on the knife.
Cleric cleared his throat, looking towards the Visgaer as he tipped his head in Amelie’s direction. “You mind?”
The Visgaer started towards her and Amelie screamed, changing directions to back away from it. But it was quick, crossing the room on those long legs in just a few strides. It reached out for her, and Amelie suddenly felt like all the air had been pulled from her lungs by some unseen force. She fell to her knees, clutching at her throat, but there was nothing to pry away. She looked helplessly towards Alex just in time to see him go limp in Cleric’s arms, and then her own vision began to swim. A few seconds later, she slumped to the floor and was out.
IV
Michael heard footsteps and looked up from his book. Peering into the rearview mirror of Cleric’s car, he furrowed his brow at the sight of the man and his creature approaching with Amelie draped across the monster’s arms and some boy thrown over Cleric’s shoulder. He stepped out of the passenger side of the car just as Cleric was opening the trunk.
“Who the hell is that?” Michael asked.
Cleric dumped Alex into the trunk. “That’s the Catalyst,” he said with a smirk, and slammed the lid closed. “Now get back in the car. We’ve got work to do.”
“Huh,” Michael said, then looked over the top of the car at the Visgaer as it placed Amelie in the back seat. “While I am impressed that your pet came through as promised, I must ask just what you think you’re doing bringing her back here alive.”
“Insurance,” Cleric said as he came around to the driver’s side door and opened it. He stooped into the car momentarily, grabbed something from under the seat, and returned to slide it across the top of the car towards Michael. The young man stopped it and blinked. It was a large envelope, stuffed to the brim with a stack of papers, and it was spattered with blood.
“What have you done?” Michael whispered.
“I’m not sure if you didn’t think I’d guess who you left it with or you just thought I wouldn’t kill the palace priest, but either way, you grossly underestimated me,” Cleric said.
Michael took a shuddering breath and looked to Cleric, his eyes glassy.
“Now listen here, you little shit,” Cleric went on, “we are going to finish this job as originally planned. Then you are going to give me what you owe me. Then, and only then, I will take care of the girl. But I swear to God, if you try to fuck with me again, I won’t kill you…I’ll make sure she takes power in Chicane and then let her decide what to do with you. Is that understood?”
Michael swallowed and nodded.
“Good. Now get in the fucking car.”
FOURTH INTERLUDE
Didst thou stand up straight and tall?<
br />
Defy the winds to make thee fall?
As nighttime draws across thy land
Thou art one day more a man
In seven years, everything and nothing had changed.
Brushing loose locks of ebony hair from his cobalt eyes, the thirteen-year-old boy stared blankly down at two slabs of steak sizzling in the skillet before him. The heat from the stove was pleasant. It was late January, and they were experiencing an unusual cold snap. The woods around the house were blanketed in white on this particular evening.
As he prepared dinner, the boy glanced across the kitchen to the breakfast nook where Father sat. He was just as large and formidable as ever, but the intervening years had bestowed him with a more prominent belly than before. He had taken to drinking a great deal since the death of his firstborn son.
However, he was still no force to be toyed with. Although his abdomen had lost its definition, his arms still rippled with the muscles of a hard-working blacksmith. Those arms that led to those thick wrists that ended in those meaty hands. When the boy stared at those hands, he sometimes thought he could still see blood on them. The same blood he had scrubbed from his hands, the blade, the floor. He had scrubbed and scrubbed and…
With a loud holler, the boy yanked his hand away from the stove as he felt the flame lick his flesh. With the sudden movement, he nearly lost the whole skillet, and one of the steaks fell to the floor with a wet slap.
The boy closed his eyes with a sigh as he slid the pan back onto the stove. Father slammed down the mug he’d been drinking from and stormed over to his son.
“What is wrong with you, boy, wasting perfectly good meat? It seems you will go hungry tonight.” Since the incident years before, Father’s temperament had become increasingly unpredictable. His rare moments of kindness were more tender than they ever were when his eldest son was still alive, but his rage was also much worse, and far easier to incite.
“It will not go to waste,” the boy whispered, “I will eat it dirty.” He stooped down to pick up the fallen cut of beef.
The boy’s pain was immediate and much more prominent than the burn on his hand when Father reached down and snatched up a handful of his shaggy black hair, yanking him back upright.
“I said you are going hungry. Is there something wrong with your ears, boy?” Father leaned close, glaring. The boy shook his head. “Good. Then finish my meal, and God help you if it’s overcooked.” With that, he shoved the boy away, forcing his side to slam painfully against the stove.
All of a sudden, the boy’s heart began pounding wildly, but not out of fear. It was a new sensation, wild, almost animalistic. He had never felt it before in his life and had no idea where it came from, but the self-assured instinct that came with it was far too powerful for him to second-guess.
Before he even knew it was happening, his hand had wrapped itself around the heavy handle of the cast-iron skillet. Then that skillet was swinging through the air, coming around in a wide arc towards the back of Father’s head. It connected with a loud clang, and Father dropped like a sack of grain.
The boy’s breathing came in panicked heaves as he stood over Father’s motionless form, the skillet still grasped firmly in his hand. He stood there for almost two full minutes, just breathing and staring at the unmoving shape of the man who had tortured him his entire life.
Then Father began to stir.
“Move,” the boy whispered to himself, trying to coax his limbs out of entropy, but they refused to budge. He just stood dumbfounded, frozen in place.
Father groaned, moving one hand to the floor and beginning to push himself up.
“Move!” the boy yelled, and the sound of his own voice startled his body into submission. He launched himself forward, headed for the kitchen door on the far side of the breakfast nook. However, he only made it three steps before a firm hand grabbed the hem of his pant leg, causing him to stumble forward, his stomach hitting the table and an “Oof!” forcing itself from his lungs.
When the boy spun around, his eyes widened in horror at the sight of Father scrambling to his feet. He had seen the look in Father’s eyes only once before. It was just before he killed his brother. Just before those eyes changed.
What happened next occurred in the span of only seconds, but the boy’s mind seemed to somehow be working faster just now. He came to the realization that, although Father was moving incredibly fast, he had injured the man more than he gave himself credit for. Not only had blood already completely wet the hair on the back of Father’s head, it was also trickling from his right ear, all the way down the side of his thick neck. The young man supposed that maybe he had hurt something on the inside, because he certainly hadn’t hit him on the ear. Furthermore, although he was advancing at a steady pace, he was wobbling, just like he did after a night of heavy drinking. He was unbalanced, and the boy could use that.
Those realizations must have come hand-in-hand with that animal instinct to act, because there it was flaring up again. Father was only a couple of feet away, arms outstretched, ready to take hold of his throat, or maybe slam his face into the hot stove, or perhaps just stick a knife in his side like his brother’s—the blade was right there on his belt, after all. But the boy would allow none of those things, his new instinct was going to make sure of that. So as Father rushed towards him, the boy shot his foot out to the left, hooked the chair next to him by its leg, and slid it directly into Father’s path.
A sort of awe fell over the boy as the scene before him seemed to happen in slow motion. Father’s eyes widened in a nearly comical manner as he realized his impending fate, just before his shins collided with the chair. Unable to evade it, he stumbled headlong over the chair and his chin slammed directly down on the edge of the table, blood spraying from his nose and mouth as he once again collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The boy did not hesitate this time. He headed straight out of the kitchen and into the front room, making his way towards the front door. However, he stopped suddenly when he realized his feet were bare. Cursing to himself, he bolted for the stairs, taking them two-by-two up to the second floor.
Hurrying out of his bedroom minutes later, he pulled on his winter coat as he headed for the stairs. He had nearly made it to the stairwell when he heard his name bellowed drunkenly from the floor below. His stomach dropped and he froze in his tracks. He felt his chest tightening up and he was gripped with the sudden impulse to hide. It was, after all, exactly what he had done all these years.
But this time was different, he forced himself to realize. This was the day he had been thinking about for the last seven years, it had just come as much more of a surprise than expected. He had already thought about it in so many ways. Sneak out in the middle of the night. Poison Father’s dinner, perhaps. Or maybe just light fire to the house, as long as he made sure he had some food packed away first.
But he had only actually tried to escape once, the previous summer. When Father had caught him, and the boy had suffered the horrible, inventive punishment for that particular crime, he had thought he would have to wait at least another year before he tried again. Now, by virtue of the most spontaneous and unplanned of events, he could be free. All he had to do was get out of this house alive.
He could hear Father’s footsteps now, approaching the foot of the stairs. The boy’s eyes darted about as he tried to come up with a plan. Shooting his gaze to the doorway atop the stairs, he considered the large, full china cabinet next to it. Block it. Yes, block the doorway and go out a second-floor window.
Setting his new idea into motion with decisiveness that surprised even him, the boy dashed to the cabinet and started pushing it with his shoulder. For a moment, it refused to budge. Then, with a squeal of wood against wood, he began to slowly inch it in front of the doorway.
The boy’s father momentarily paused his slow ascent of the stairs and looked up in confusion as the light up ahead started to disappear. His head still swimming, he wondered if he might be blacking out
. But it didn’t take long for him to realize his son’s stupidity.
“If you can push that in front of the door, do you really think it will stop me, you little whelp?” the man screamed as he resumed his climb, gripping the stair rail tightly the whole time.
Having just fully obscured the door upon hearing this, the boy pondered it for a moment as he took a step back from the large cabinet. The fear inside him swelled when he realized Father was right. But then instinct stepped in once more and told him just what to do, and that brought a smirk to the boy’s lips.
With a great lunge, the boy slammed his shoulder against the front of the cabinet as hard as he could. He thought it would take more than the one try, but the cabinet slid, creaked, and began to tilt. As he watched it there, teetering on the edge, the boy recalled the horror he had felt watching a vase do the same thing seven years before. This time, he begged for gravity to win.
And as though his wish was granted, the china cabinet fell back and went tumbling down the stairs. He heard a panicked scream. He heard a thunderous crash. Then he heard nothing.
The boy’s chest was sore and tight. His shoulder already ached terribly. But he was not done. Not bothering to check Father’s condition, he headed towards the far end of the hallway. He could go out the window there, hop down onto the woodshed, and jump from there to the ground. Get one of the horses from the stable and get out of here. If he played his cards right, he could reach London in a day. Maybe find an orphanage that would feed him, or a nice family to…
“Come play,” a voice whispered.
The boy’s blood ran cold as he stopped and turned wide eyes towards the doorway to his right. That long flight of stairs leading up into the darkness of the third floor. Only it wasn’t really darkness. There were small lamps. They gave off just a little light. Just enough to see by to spend four hours scrubbing blood off the floor. Oh, and the keyhole flickered, but big brother had said not to go near that. Said he shouldn’t see what…
The Crimes of Orphans Page 22