“Yo, chill homes.”
“Let me warn you, brother—”
“I ain’t your brother,” Boone hit the meth again. “I ain’t your brother and whatever you’re about to say is gonna fall on deaf ears.” He switched nostrils. “Look at you.” And switched nostrils again. “Don the Magic Wand. You know—Wand? Like a fuckin’ tool?”
“You’re calling me a tool?”
“Hey, we’s cool Big Duke.”
“No, we most assuredly are not.” Big Duke turned to the man in the backseat. “Let me see that bag of weed.” Damian handed the bag over. “For later,” said the driver.
“So.” Boone looked back to Damian. “We gonna do this or what?”
“Let’s do this.” Damian spoke for the first time.
“I can’t keep sitting here like this.” Boone had his head cocked back, examining his nostrils in the visor mirror. “Couped up like this.”
“You’re high,” said Big Duke. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Let’s do this,” Damian said.
“Pop the trunk, Big Duke.”
The trunk was bare save for a meat hook, a cleaver, a five gallon jerrycan and a wooden stake. “He gets a shotgun but they don’t trust us with guns, huh?” Big Duke didn’t look like he was going to lend out his sawed-off and Boone wasn’t going to ask. He reached into the trunk and hefted the meat cleaver, thought better of it and handed it to Damian. “Here.”
Boone tried the meat hook on for size, liked how it felt in his hand.
“What’s that for?” Big Duke was standing there with his sawed off, wearing his sterling silver belt buckle that had Red River in the lower right corner, a large D above two parallel curved lines, the rest of the buckle obscured by the flannel-shirted belly curtaining it.
Boone ignored him and spoke to Damian. “Grab the gas.” He took the meat hook and the stake, started walking off down the block. “Come on, D.”
Big Duke watched the both of them go, two big, crazy young white men. The hell had he gotten himself into. Maybe they’d both get themselves killed inside the vampire’s nest. Then he’d have to go in there and finish shit off. Yeah, maybe they’d get themselves killed. Somehow he didn’t think so.
“You usually this quiet?” Boone didn’t know Damian all that well.
“When I have nothing to say.”
“Don’t know ‘bout you,” Boone glared at a civilian who crossed to the other side of the street, steering clear of the two men wielding butcher equipment and a gasoline can in broad daylight. “I’m amped up.” The guy hurried off minding his own business. “I can almost taste this.”
“That’s the meth talking.”
“How ‘bout you, D? You ready for this?”
“Lead on.”
“Hey—whoever or whatever we find in there—the bloodsucker is mine. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“You got more meth?” They’d reached the building, each man taking his place on either side of the door.
“Plenty where that came from. You know,” Damian said before they went in, “I don’t think Big Duke likes you much.”
“Yeah. Fuck him. You go first.”
Damian leaned over and rapped on the door with his knuckles.
“No.” Boone shook his head like he was irritated, surrounded by amateurs. “Like this.” He kicked the door open with his booted foot. Going in low, he expected gunfire. None came. The interior of the building was dark, its windows blacked out and curtained, suiting his dilated pupils just fine.
“The fuck guys?” A woman rushed at them and Boone put her down with one swing of the wooden stake. She slumped to the floor, groaning, her jaw broken, an eye bulging out of her head. A second slave stepped through a door, his finger pointed, mouth opening—and Damian buried the cleaver in the man’s forehead with a wet thwack.
Someone scrambled in the shadows and Boone spied another woman bolting from the room. He raced after her in the dark, catching her in the next room.
She wore cut off denim jeans and a dirty t-shirt. The scabrous flesh around her neck looked like the inside of a junkie’s elbow from her master’s fangs.
“Where is he?” Boone had a hand on either side of her face, holding her in place. “Where is he?”
She was shaking like a rabbit but wouldn’t answer him.
“Come on. Talk to me.”
When she wouldn’t, Boone took one hand off her face—letting the wooden stake clatter to the floor—and brought his open palm down on her cheek, jerking her head around.
“That hurt? That hurt, right? Where is he?”
She wouldn’t say a word and he smacked her again, harder.
Damian was watching him from the shadows of the room.
“You got somethin’ you want to say, D?”
“No.”
“Come on.” Boone mandhandled the woman over to a table littered with half emptied Chinese food take-out containers. She was crying. “Get over here.” Boone put her hand down on the table, holding it there by the wrist. “Open up. Open your goddamned hand.” She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Open. Spread your fingers on the table.”
“N-N-No.” She whimpered, terrified. She’d balled her fist on the table.
Boone brought the wooden handle of the meat hook down on the back of her fist, hammering it once. Bones in her hand audibly cracked and she gasped before screaming.
“I said open!”
He lifted her hand from the table and slammed it back down. He slammed it a second time and when he did her fingers had splayed, whatever fight left in her gone.
“I’m going to ask you again,” Boone brushed her fingers with the meat hook’s handle, letting her know he’d crush them. “Where is he?”
She shook her head behind her tears and snot.
Boone exhaled. Before he could break any more bones in her hand, Damian stepped forward and brought the cleaver down, severing three of her fingers. “Oh shit!” Boone recoiled slightly, surprised, grinning maniacally, the woman screaming. “Damn, D. You don’t play.”
“Where is he bitch!?” Damian shouted at her.
Her breath came back to her and even as the sobs ratcheted up a notch she raised her good hand to point. Boone let her go and the woman fell down on the table, pulling her wounded hand in close to her body.
“Mine!” Having retrieved his stake, Boone stalked off into the dark where she had pointed. The woman was reaching for her fingers on the tabletop when Damian waded in and—over her desperate cries—finished her with several blows from the cleaver.
Boone found Enfermo in the back of the house.
The vampire was hanging in a closet, resting. Boone looked it up and down, expecting more. It was a gaunt little thing, deathly white, not much better than the slaves it kept. He prodded it with the stake and it didn’t stir.
He tapped crystal out onto the back of his hand and snorted—“Ah fuck yeah”—electricity shooting through his brain. Damian was standing next to him, his bare arms and face blood spattered.
“You?” Boone gestured with the meth.
Damian shook his head.
“Let’s do this.” Boone leaned into the closet and grabbed Enfermo by its throat, yanking it free of its perch and dumping it onto the floor of the room they stood in. The thing tried to rise to a seated position, groggy. “Wake up sweetheart.” Boone cracked it in the head with a swipe of the meathook, sending it sprawling across the floor. “Wake-the-fuck-up.” Boone hit it with the stake. “Wake up motherfucker.” And again.
Enfermo was coming alive, trying to say something, trying to scramble away on all fours. Boone knelt down and rammed the sharpened stake through the seat of its pants, deep into its rectum and stomach. “Yeah—” The beast shrieked “—you’re awake now, right? That got your attention?”
Boone brought the sharpened end of the meat hook around and down, burying it deep in Enfermo’s chest. “Come on motherfucker!” He dragged the vampire from the room and
through the house, the creature garbling, claw-like hands struggling against the meat hook. Boone dragged it from room to room, past its dead and wounded slaves, screaming at it the whole way: “You know who I am motherfucker?” Damian followed in their wake, splashing gas on the walls. “You know who I am?”
Boone hauled Enfermo out onto the sidewalk, out into the sun—“I’m a’ tell ya”—the wooden stake projecting from its rear. “I’m the one who got away!” Boone dumped the vampire on the street, yanking the meat hook free.
Big Duke was leaning against the Town Car, cradling the double barrel, an unlit spliff in his mouth. The belt of shotgun shells rested on the roof of the car.
Enfermo started to smolder in the daylight.
“I’m the one they didn’t get!” Boone walked a tight circle around the smoking vampire. Enfermo wailed in agony, scampering back towards the doorway and the shadows within.
“You seeing this?” Big Duke asked Damian around the spliff.
“Not so fast!” Boone hooked Enfermo again and made to tug it back from the doorway but the vampire gripped either side of the doorframe with its blackening hands. “No. You get back out here.”
“He won’t let you!” Enfermo sounded desperate. “He won’t let you get away with this!”
“Hamilton. Madison. Gossitch.” Boone recited their names. “They were my friends!” He ripped the meat hook out and drove it back in. “You hear me? My fucking friends.”
“Me and you just gonna stand around and watch this?” Big Duke remarked to Damian, who shrugged.
“He won’t let you—”
“Yeah, right.” Boone had let go of the meat hook and was pulling on the vampire’s leg, trying to dislodge it from the doorframe. “Come on, motherfucker, get back out—”
“This doesn’t bother you?” Big Duke looked at Damian, the long-haired blonde splashed with blood. “Not one bit?
Damian asked, “You got a match?”
“They were my friends—hear me? My friends!”
“He’s not dead!” Desperation colored Enfermo’s voice. “Frank isn’t dead!”
“Oh yeah? Yeah? Yeah, you know what—nice try. Get the fuck back out here—”
“I can tell you where—I can tell you!”
“Tell me shit, motherfucker! Try—”
Damian was passing them, heading back into the house, the near empty gas can and a book of matches in one hand, meat cleaver in the other.
“—try telling me how the fuck you found us in the first place.”
“Ask him! Ask him!”
“Ask who?”
Enfermo took one hand from the doorframe to point. Damian brought the cleaver down and took the vampire’s hand off at its wrist. The beast started to shake and scream, frustrated and hopeless.
Boone ripped Enfermo from the doorframe and tossed it into the street. “How’s it feel?” He planted his booted foot in the vampire’s chest and pinned it to the pavement. “How’s it feel?” The creature screeched and clawed at Boone’s leg—“Feel good to you, fuck? Huh?”—but he ignored the gashes it tore through his jeans and flesh. “Burn.” The vampire was bubbling in the light of day, boiling around Boone’s boot. “Burn you piece of shit.” Boone hocked and spat into the liquefying mass under his foot.
Placing the spliff on the roof of the car, Big Duke broke the shotgun open. He withdrew the two shells in place. “How’d that feel?” The cowboy asked Boone. A skeletonized, blackened forearm and hand sunk to the ground under Boone, crumbling to to ash.
“Pretty satisfying actually.”
“Feel better?” Big Duke thumbed two new shells he’s taken from the belt into the barrels. He snapped the shotgun closed.
“This shit is just getting started,” Boone reached down into the stain that was Enfermo and picked up his meat hook. “Can’t wait to get this into that Rainford fuck.”
“Oh, you’re warming up. Is that it?”
“He warmed up.” Boone looked down on what was left of Enfermo.
“He warmed up,” Big Duke repeated. Boone had begun to walk off, away from the house, away from the car and Big Duke and Damian. “Hey,” Big Duke called after him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I got some work to put in,” Boone called over his shoulder. He tried to clear his mind of the faces there.
“Like hell.”
“Do yourself a favor,” Boone halted in the street and turned to confront the man in the cowboy hat, “and steer clear—hear me Big Dookey?”
“I figured it’d go down this way.” Big Duke let him have it with one barrel, the shotgun exploding in his hands. Boone was knocked off his feet and flopped on the street, gasping, breathless.
Damian came out of the house and looked Boone over.
The man lay there incapacitated and in a great deal of pain, but alive.
“What’d you hit him with?”
“Rock salt.” Big Duke laid the shotgun on the roof of the car next to the spliff and the shells. He approached Boone, a taser in his hand. “I got a feeling you’re gonna, but—” he stood over the downed man, extending the arm with the taser, “—don’t take this personally.”
“…nnnnn…” Boone attempted, but no words would come out.
“What’s that?”
Fuckin’ nigger!
“You know what? Take it personally.” Big Duke zapped him. Boone shook uncontrollably on the street, his body wracked by electricity. Big Duke hit him again to make sure before turning to Damian. “Give me a hand getting this guy into the car?”
Smoke was starting to pour out of the house. A battered woman with her eye popping out of her head was crawling through the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.” Damian hefted the bloody cleaver.
As Damian went to finish his business, Big Duke stood in the street over Boone’s inert form. The black man in the cowboy boots and cowboy hat looked down on the loud mouth, suddenly quiet.
The guy lying in his own piss.
Big Duke thought about the spliff back on the roof of the car. He could drag him back to the vehicle himself.
19.
5:50 P.M.
“Look. It’s like this.”
Boone was stretched vertically on the rack, spread eagled, with Big Duke standing there in his cowboy hat, talking to him. A television was showing the original Highlander.
“You got under my skin out there.” Big Duke smoked a joint. “I shouldn’t have let you.”
“You saying you sorry?” Contempt colored Boone’s words.
“No.”
“Good. ‘Cause I’m not accepting apologies.”
Big Duke held his tongue, thought about what he was going to say before he said it.
“You have the manners of a goat.” Ramirez was chastising MacLeod on the screen. “And you have no knowledge whatsoever of your potential!”
“What I’m saying—” Big Duke was starting to say something conciliatory until Boone cut him off with, “You’re on my shit list now, motherfucker.”
“—is I just want you to know it wasn’t personal,” Big Duke managed to finish his sentence.
“Bet your black ass its personal now motherfucker.”
“Why do you make this more difficult than it’s got to be? I’m just doing what I got to do. Like we all are.”
“And like I said. It’s personal now, Big Doofy. I’m tryin’ to watch the movie.”
Big Duke gestured with the joint, like he wanted to share it.
“When I want your weed,” Boone told him, “I’ll take it.”
“So it’s going to be that way?”
“Yeah, it’s gonna’ be that way. First chance I get, I’m gonna’ kill you motherfucker. Now get—I’m tryin’ to watch this.”
“Ah, I see you are awake,” the dark Lord had entered the chamber silently, “and apparently none the worse for wear.”
“You too motherfucker. Soon as I get the chance, I’m going to off your dead ass too.”
“Tch, tch, tch.” Rainfo
rd stood there considering Boone. Big Duke took a step back, away from the vampire lord. “You’ve so little in common with the rest of your own, isn’t that so, Boone? As I have with mine. Perhaps in this, we share some common ground.”
The vampire looked at the movie on the screen. “A magnificent film, and one of the best uses of a song in the cinema.” Rainford hummed a line from Queen’s Who Wants to Live Forever, then spoke to Big Duke: “Leave us now.”
“Hey, Big Doofy,” Boone called after the departing man. “That hat? It sucks.”
Nigger-nigger-nigger-nigger
The other man left without reply.
“I was told of your performance with Enfermo. Bravo, Boone, bravo.”
“My performance? What, you gonna clap? That son of a bitch got what was coming to him.”
“And I was told that you attemped to walk off at the end of the mission. That,” Rainford turned the television off, Christopher Lambert walking out of the lake towards Sean Connery, “just will not do.”
“The job was done. And I was watching that.”
“That job. Perhaps we can view it together at a later time.”
“I had things to do. And, no, I don’t think so.”
“Yes, your family, I know.”
“That black mother—”
“Please Boone, the racism? It’s so antiquated.”
“Oh, now I’m really going to kill that fuck.”
“You thought I somehow did not know of the existence of your sister and her family?” Rainford waved his hand. “Quite the contare, Boone. They have been under my surveillance for some time now.”
“Why you—”
“There are those who would mean them harm, Boone. Not I, I assure you.”
“You’re—”
“I am protecting them, Boone. Protecting them.”
“From yourself?”
“From her.”
Boone quieted, sober.
“If you wish to ensure their continued safety, you will comply with my requests. You are listening now. Would you like to know who turned Enfermo? He is tied—however indirectly—to Kreshnik’s mother.”
“You gonna give me a shot at her?”
“That is precisely what I intend.”
I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2) Page 11