I Kill Monsters: The Revenants (Book 2)
Page 16
“Before, mate. You asked me what my secret power was.” The Goblin smiled wide and nodded towards its crotch.
“You’se a cocky motherfucker then, huh?”
Pomeroy tried and failed to stifle a laugh.
“And you’re punny.”
“You got a name or somethin’?” Boone asked the Hobgoblin.
“Yeah I got a name.”
Boone shook his head.
The metal gate slid back and he and Pomeroy stepped into the short hallway, up to the door. The gargoyle in its niche, staring straight ahead.
“You and Halstead a couple, that it?” Boone asked, Pomeroy’s hand raised to knock.
Pomeroy paused to answer, “Since 1912,” knocked, then added, a little higher than a whisper, “He likes you, you know.”
“Halstead? Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Noooo,” Pomeroy drew out the word, reaching up and touched its hair, the door opening inwards on its own. “Not Halstead,” the vampire turned, gesturing expansively with one hand, bidding Boone enter the suite of rooms. “Him,” nodding inside. Boone went in, convinced the gargoyle’s stare followed him through the entrance.
Boone walked into Rainford’s apartment, steeling himself.
The temptation to take Rainford out was strong, but it wasn’t the time. If he tried and failed, the dark Lord would exact his vengeance on Jennifer and Derrick, on the kids. If he tried and succeeded, Boone had no assurances he could escape this place and get to his sister’s before whatever contingency plans Rainford had were set in motion. And then there was that fuckin’ thing downstairs…Boone needed to get his hands on a piece, something big.
And it was better not to think like that around here, Boone thought as he walked down the hall, towards the music. If a guy like Big Duke could read minds, there was no telling who or what else could. As before the music was something completely at odds with how Boone conceived of the dark Lord. R. Dean Taylor singing, “Indiana wants me, Lord I can’t go back there.”
Seated on his settee, eyes closed, one leg straight out on the cushions, the other bent at its knee, Rainford was waiting for him. The dark Lord waved its hand in the air, conducting the music.
“Ah, Boone.” Rainford’s eyes opened. “Please, enter and sit.” The dark Lord turned an opened palm to the seat across from it. Boone did as requested, settling his muscular frame into the cushions.
“You are well, I trust?”
Boone stuck his lower lip out and nodded.
“I believe you will have found the accomodations satisfactory? Colson tells me you progress in training.”
“Look. I really didn’t come here to make small talk.”
“Tell me, Boone. I invite you into my personal quarters. Would you invite me into yours?”
An image—Rainford, down on Boone’s apartment’s carpet, Boone kneeling over the dark Lord, repeatedly plunging a stake through him—flashed in Boone’s head and he had to grin. “No, probably not.”
“You know, however, it does not have to be this way between us.”
“What way?”
“Adversarial. Hostile.”
“Whatever, man.” Boone looked around the room, at the spines of the books on Rainford’s shelves.
“Throughout history, there have been alliances between your kind and mine. Friendships.”
“Let’s not get carried away, Rainford. I don’t even like it when I see a white chick with a black dude.”
“I see you, Boone, and I see potential, vast potential.” When Boone didn’t reply the vampire said, “Sometimes all one lacks in the achievement of greatness is guidance.”
“You don’t know me, man.”
“True. But neither do you know yourself. I believe you to be atypical.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means you are special, Boone. Unique.”
“Yeah and so are the kids on the little school bus. That what you called me here for? A pep talk? Want me to tell you how fucking cool you are? Tell you what, Rainford: you’re way cooler than that Bela Lugosi fuck. Or even Uncle Al.”
“Your words sadden me more than you know.”
“I’m here because you’re in a position to make me be here. I’m here because you’ve got my sister and her family hostage or some shit I don’t even know about. I’m not here because I like you and I don’t care about making you happy. First chance I get—”
“Please.” The dark Lord gestured like he had heard all this before and was inured to such words. “This is the best part of the song.”
It hurts to see the man I’ve become, Taylor was singing, And to know I’ll never see the morning sun shine on the land.
“You listen to this shit to beat yourself up, that it?”
“My bibliophilism is apparant,” Rainford gestured expansively towards the book lined walls. “However, I am also a lover of the verbalized word in all forms.”
“I never figured you for this ’70s shit is all.”
“To what would you have me subject my ears? Not this trash they call ‘pop’ music today, wedged between commercial breaks. Pshaw!” Rainford indicated the music. “I prefer Vicky Lawrence or Don MacLean, Bobby Goldsboro and Gordon Lightfoot—modern day troubadors all.”
“Whatever man.”
“I am no stranger to conflict, Boone. I have beheld struggle and participated in it. I sat on La Montagne—the mountain—with Robespierre until his fall. I heard the whistle of artillery followed by the cries of men at Verdun. I rode with the Cossacks against the Turks, and the Mujahadeen against Soviet tanks. And all this, all this, pales in comparison to what confronts us today.”
“You and me—”
“No, not you and I, Boone. The threat this, this woman poses is more than you can imagine. I have little time left to me.”
You have no idea, Boone looked across the room.
“These ancient bones grow tired. I do not wish to leave behind a world marked by strife and destruction on a scale never before realized.”
“I get that you’re some kind of big mucky-muck in bloodsucker circles. Why not just openly declare war on this bitch and take her down then?”
“We have had civil war amongst my kind. Each time it threatened to reveal us to the world. Should that ever happen, the vampiro would have no choice but to align ourselves with Lativia and those of her mind. Need I say, that would spell the end of humanity.”
“You really don’t like her, do you?”
“It is more than that. I have a personal history with this woman—”
“I already know enough about your love life.”
“—a personal history,” an amused look played over Rainford’s pale face, “I choose not to recount now.”
Thank God, Boone thought but stayed quiet.
“I know what it is like, to harbor concern for family. I have a brother, Viktor, whose contumacy has caused me no shortage of concern, I must admit.”
“There’s things I want.”
“See this mission through and you will be rewarded handsomely. Your freedom, your life, the safety of your family—all these and more shall be yours. As will my gratitude, which, I daresay, you will find not insignificant.”
“I want money.”
“State the amount.”
“Five million.”
“It is done.”
“That thing in the basement?”
“I will have it destroyed.”
“Big Duke.”
“What of him?”
“I want carte blanche.”
“In what sense?”
“I’m gonna take his ass out. I don’t want to have to worry about you after I do that.”
“I have hand chosen each of you for your special talents. This man you know as Big Duke has many abilities that will serve your mission well.”
“I’m sayin’, he gets hit by friendly fire, I don’t want to catch any shit for it.”
“Vision is often blurred in the fog of war.”
Boone took that
for consent. “Tell Colson. I don’t want him all over my ass.”
“He shall be apprised.”
Boone nodded. He’d been right.
“You do realize,” the dark Lord continued to look amused, pleased, “for one in no position to make demands, you have several.”
And you’re real quick to grant them, Boone knew.
“Any others?”
“I need a day to myself.”
“A day?”
“To take care of some things.”
“Of course. Be back by tomorrow night. It will not do for you to miss your flight.”
“You know something?” Boone rose to leave. “This music. It’s so not you”
“Good music transcends temporality and circumstance. Music speaks to the soul.”
“Don’t talk to me about souls, Rainford. Because I don’t believe in ‘em and from what I hear, your type don’t have any.”
“Despite your incessant antipathy, I do so enjoy these conversations.” Rainford smiled sadly at him. “I hope they continue in the future. Good day to you, Boone.”
Wednesday
21 October 1998
28.
9:35 A.M.
The fact that it was morning didn’t stop Cassidy from having a drink. Or two. It was something he did whenever he had to make a big decision. A glass of Scotch in his hand, a bottle of Glenlivet on the glass table in front of him, Cassidy stretched out on his couch with the remote in his other hand, the wide-screen television mounted on the wall across the living room.
Something he did when there was a big decision to be made: not get drunk, have a drink; getting drunk just happened sometimes.
He’d placed a coaster on the table for his glass.
“—Mephito’s Manifesto is a hodge podge of aphorisms, haiku, and seemingly discursive parables encompassing historical demography, microbiology, and philosophy—”
The television was blaring some inanity. Cassidy sat back lazily, his large frame sunk down in the couch. On the table in front of him, next to the bottle, was his shoulder holster. Resting in it, butt out towards him, his .45. The pistol had seven in the clip and one in the chamber. It was exactly a foot and a half away from Cassidy’s right hand, the hand resting indolently on his bent knee, the remote loosely gripped.
If an assassin came into his living room Cassidy could drop the remote, lean forward and fill his hand with the .45, pound the would-be killer into oblivion. Except no one had tried to kill him in a long time, not since he’d bowed out of the game. No one knew where he lived. And right now the only thing filling his hand was the remote control.
The sun hung strong outside, filtering between the track blinds of his picture window, lighting up the wall behind his television, washing out the picture, obscuring the art on the walls. Cassidy not bothered enough to get up and draw the blinds. Bullshit on t.v. anyway.
Some bloated, red-faced white man on the screen commenting: “—reads like the ramblings of an insane grad student dangling his toes in the hard sciences—”
If an assassin came in his living room, faster than Cassidy could ditch the remote and take up the pistol from the tabletop, the big man would reach across his body to the twin .45 that rested next to his right hip and launch the killer or killers into the hereafter. A round chambered in the second .45, the pistol lying amid the scattered pillows exactly where Cassidy had placed it.
Janelle was out, away on vacation. Their kids were grown, moved out. Matter of fact, Janelle was away on vacation with Harold and his family, their youngest. Janelle was around, Cassidy didn’t leave the guns lying about. But he always kept one near.
Cassidy didn’t expect to have to kill anyone right there and then. His days as an executioner or gunman or whatever people would call him were over. And then the phone call yesterday.
He sipped his single malt Scotch and leaned forward, replacing the glass on the coaster. The glass was nearly empty and he would have to get up and visit the bar, refill it soon.
He sat back and admired the brilliance of the sun against the wall above the television. He jabbed the channel button on the remote.
Click
“Honey—have you seen the formaldehyde-covered afterbirth I was keeping in the fridge?”
“Edith, this is great dip. What’s your secret?”
Canned laughter.
Cassidy flexed his right wrist, clicking to another channel.
Click
Behind him, two phones sat on an end table. His house phone and his cell. Janelle had called on the house phone yesterday, letting him know she was having a grand old time with Harold in Martinique. The call that’d come after that, the call on his cell, had him rethinking his retirement.
He was enjoying these days away from the life very much. As an associate of the Genesse family, he’d made enough to secure himself and Janelle all the pleasantries in life. His family wanted for nothing. Even now, Janelle and Harold in the Caribbean with Harold’s wife and kids, they were there on his dime.
“Elderly? Invalid? Lonely? Have you ever considered live-in European care?”
Click
He’d survived the streets of Chicago, the gang wars and random violence. He’d put in two decades of work for the family and been able to walk away, one of the few. Unlike so many others, he was not indebted to the Genesse, his bond with them a friendship forged with Anthony Genesse back in their high school days.
They’d let him enjoy his retirement, not calling him once. And now they were calling him, requesting a favor. One last job. He could decline. It really was a favor, not a thinly veiled threat or order. They wouldn’t go that route with him because they respected him, respected what he was capable of. He was the best at what he did. They’d come to him.
He rested on his couch, sipping his Scotch, the killer in repose.
“Walk brother! Walk! You can walk brother! The Lord is in you—the Lord is in you! Walk, get up, walk! You can do it!”
Click
The job would pay well, not that that was the thing. Making money had ceased being a concern of his long ago. He’d never been one given to fancy dress or flashy cars. All those years, he’d taken the money they’d paid him and put it away, had guys smarter than him invest it. Thing was, he was sitting on his couch with a glass of Scotch and a remote control in his hands. He knew he should be happy, should be satisfied. Content.
Cassidy looked over to the .45 on the table. It’d been awhile. A long while. Restlessness, he thought, might be one of his defining qualities.
Some rap guy was doing what he did on the black video channel.
“And what we can do right here is go back/How far you gonna go back/ Way back…”
Janelle with Harold and his family in Martinique. Cassidy enjoyed travel, but not enough to accompany his family on a month long trip. Especially one that required an eight hour flight. He hated flying. Absolutely hated it. Cassidy was convinced he was going to be on a plane one day and it was going to go down, plummet into the ocean or a city block or something, him pressed against his seat, enough time to know exactly what was happening and what was going to happen, enough time to appreciate the absurdity of it all.
So he’d let Janelle go with Harold and Harold’s family because he thought nothing bad would happen to them if he wasn’t with them. If he was ever going to be on a plane and the plane was going to go down? He’d want to be on it alone, not with anyone he loved.
“…brothers would lay back/cut a line drop a rhyme and press the playback…”
Click
“Hi. You’ve reached the home shopping club.”
“Oh, hello!”
“Hi. How do you like your handsome two-inch dog belt buckle?”
“I’ve been sitting here all day waiting to see this on your show.”
Click
Janelle had chosen the artwork for their walls. The Knight and the Briar Rose depicted three armor clad nobles tangled in briars, one lone hero with his sword drawn working his
way through. They were in search of the sleeping princess, but three of them weren’t going to make it.
“…now the ancient relaxation techniques and sexual secrets of the Polynesian masters is available for the first time in this—”
Click
One last job, Anthony had said. A week, tops. Details to follow, if he was interested. A respectable payday.
“Welcome back to the Saul Resnick Show. Ah, Jerry, when did you first start noticing this attraction to amputees?”
Click
A week. Enough time to do the job, get back meet Janelle at the airport.
“—new from the makers of Sure Soak adult undergarments—”
Click
“But Bradford, I love you.”
“I don’t care, Tina. I love Trish.”
Click
His glass nearly empty, another sip left.
“Erection problems? Not a problem!”
Click
The last four years had been nice and quiet.
“Off the top turnbuckle—”
Click
“It slices, it dices, it grates, it vibrates—why it’s more fun than electric origami.”
In the painting, three knights lay tangled in the briars, seemingly asleep.
Click
“—this Texas barbed wire match is getting downright out of hand—”
One lone knight made his way solemnly through the brambles.
Click
“Hey, sweetheart—what’s the difference between a blowjob and a baloney?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?”
Cassidy shut off the television, placing the remote on the table. His glass was empty. He sat up, placing his feet on the carpet. He looked at his hands, held one out in front of him. Still steady.
He was going to get up—
Cassidy reached over to the end table, retrieved his cell.
—get up and go over to the bar—
Hit speed dial.
—pour himself another inch or two.
Waited for the voice to answer on the other end.
The intrepid knight wading through the brambles, looking for his princess.
“I’m in,” he said, and then listened to what they had to say to him, told them it would take him a day or two to get there, no way he was flying.