Gray Night

by Gregory Colt

  “Consultant,” I said, shaking hands with him. “Didn’t realize the World Series of Poker was in town.”

  He grinned wide. “Oh, I’m always up for a game if the stakes are right.”

  “I’ll remember that,” I said.

  “Please do,” he replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I believe we’re about to begin.”

  He and the brit walked off together, leaving Djimon and I alone for the moment.

  “Anything interesting?” I asked.

  “Lots, but nothing to suggest the whereabouts of Dr. Spurling. I believe the artifacts are here, though. It seems more than one potential buyer had them analyzed for authenticity,” Djimon said.

  “I expected as much.”

  “What is your plan?”

  “Stick to your role and take care of everything we discussed earlier. Jack knows what to do also.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I’m playing free safety in the back. Sounds like this will be a long night. I’m going to take a look around the ship once things get started and see what’s what. If Claire’s here I’m getting her out first. If not, everything’s been building towards tonight, so I think it’s time someone knocked it down.”

  Massive doors opened an entire wall on my side letting in bright blue light. Everyone else had already gathered by the opening and made their way out into a much larger area.

  I let Djimon go in alone and held back to go in with Jack. The room, if you could call it that, wasn’t even a hold. It was the main floor section of the ship, several stories deep, and open to the sky. Fifty or sixty thousand square feet easily, and filled with hundreds of tables and shelves and crates lined along each of the walls, with a few large tables, bars, and other displays in the middle. Industrial lighting was anchored to the railing along each of the floors above us.

  “Welcome,” a voice boomed through a speaker above. I entered and had to step several feet further inside to get a good look up at our host.

  Joe Vitale stood at the railing two floors above looking on the crowd with a group of men around him. All of them were dressed in the same shades of gray the women were.

  That seemed strange, but I didn’t know why. He could be trying to send a message to someone, but if that was it, I couldn’t figure it out. Then again, maybe he just liked color coordinating everything.

  Vitale gestured to the man beside him and the massive doors we’d come through closed.

  “Most of you have enjoyed these with me for years so I will keep the preamble to a minimum. We have some new faces this evening I would like to recognize for all those who may not know them. One of them is Ms. Ferreira joining us all the way from Brasilia,” he called.

  A woman in a long, green, hooded cloak stepped into an open area and acknowledged our host. Those closest to her began introducing themselves.

  “From Mumbai, Mr. Saigal,” Vitale said. I stopped paying attention and tried to make my way to the back of the crowd to get a better look at the room around me, as well as getting a chance to see more of the displays set up.

  This place had it all. The tables had stacks and stacks of crates behind them where men and women in gray were opening one or two each and setting whatever was inside out for display. The guns were expected, the drugs came in amazing variety, but the other merchandise surprised me. I didn’t follow new technology, but since being gone for a decade, I made it part of my new routine to do some catching up. Which is how I knew some of the electronics I was seeing weren’t even for sale to the public yet. The next table showcased artwork from the renaissance all the way to post-modern. Nice.

  I walked along the back as Vitale introduced another woman, from Los Angeles, and the Korean looking fellow, who was, in fact, from South Korea, just so you know.

  I passed tables with lists of brand new cars, and order forms specifying price, quantity, and address to be delivered, complete with discounts on orders over five million dollars.

  A lady in gray stopped and offered me a manila envelope. “Are you interested in seeing our girls this evening? Information on each is listed according to the order they’ll be shown. Bidding begins in half an hour outside the main port corridor.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking the envelope. The gray lady produced another manila folder and engaged someone else.

  I turned towards the nearest table to open the envelope, curious if I would recognize any of the girls. Vitale was a heavy weight in human trafficking and was behind the Gray Night. Gray Night. Heh. I looked around again at our hosts color coordination under the open night sky and understood exactly who the message was for. Everyone.

  I felt more and more comfortable calling it an epidemic. Operating under the assumption everything might be connected, all the disappearances in the Bronx would be lumped in with the drugs. Maybe Vitale was selling girls to fund his territorial expansion. He wouldn’t have to kill Claire to get her out of the way with a system like this already in place. He could sell her.

  I spun around looking at the Auction. Everything I needed to piece it all together was here, somewhere.

  Glass shattered behind a table a dozen feet further down along the wall. I looked and saw someone had dropped a box. Whatever was inside had broken. Two men close by laughed and clapped at the performance. The man picking up the pieces on the floor stopped when I glanced at him.

  The table he was under buckled as he kicked himself up and went for the door he’d come out of behind the row of tables.

  It was sleazy ponytail guy. Right then I gave him a new nickname. Dead man.

  He stumbled back over the fallen box and grabbed the door handle, throwing it open and darting through.

  I slipped behind the row of tables, jumped over the box, and followed him through the door.

  I flew down the stairs. At the bottom was a dark corridor, leading to a T-junction, where a shadow at the end jumped off to the left. I went after it.

  Four turns and three hundred feet later, I caught him and dove for his back, tackling him to the metal grating beneath us in a crash.

  “W—” was all I heard before smashing his face down into the grated floor. He threw his elbows back wild, catching me in the face on the third or fourth time. I grabbed him by his ponytail and stood up, dragging him back and turning him over to face me.

  “Where is she?” I screamed into his face. “What have you done with her?”

  “You’re a dead man, Knight. A fucking dead man!” he spat blood as he spoke.

  I twisted his hair tight into my fingers and held him forward, delivering crushing blows to his face with my knee until I felt him start to go limp under his own weight.

  “You son of a bitch. The only way you’re leaving this ship alive is if you tell me where she is right now,” I whispered through gritted teeth.

  He couldn’t breathe, and was coughing and choking trying to draw in air to speak.

  “Not—” he coughed out. He couldn’t help inhaling more blood as he tried to speak again. “Not here.”

  “What do you mean not here? Where then? What has Vitale done with her? Why did he—” the sudden sense of no longer being alone flooded through me. Footsteps on metal echoed through the dark.

  I thought ponytail was coughing again, trying to speak, before I realized he was laughing. It was unnerving as hell down here. So I kicked him in the face until he stopped.

  Two big shadows stepped around the corner, and the first thing I noticed were the sores on their arms. Fuck. Discretion being the better part of valor and all, I turned and ran.

  It didn’t work. The two massive shadows lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders and wrists, and slamming me to the ground. Ow.

  Each of them stepped off to one side and held my wrists out away from me. They used their inner hands to keep my head forced down.

  I didn’t have time to wonder why they weren’t redecorating the corridor with my insides as a sharp pain tore into me. A third man I hadn’t seen behind the two others removed a
long needle from my neck.

  I didn’t know how long they held me down, but it felt glorious when I was able to move my neck again. I still couldn’t move my wrists. They were still held. I wasn’t in the hallway anymore either. I was in the corner of a small metal room. Light filled the front half from a port window high above, leaving my corner in darkness.

  I tried to twist my arms and jerk my hands free to the sound of metal clanking. My wrists had become shackled at some point. A long length of chain secured me to a steel beam rising up the wall. There was maybe eight feet of chain. Enough for me to reach most of the room, just not the door. Why the long chain?

  All the sudden movement made me dizzy and I involuntarily slouched down the wall until I was sitting in the dark little corner. What was wrong with me? What had they injected me with?

  I heard the door unlock, but when I opened my eyes, my vision made me nauseated. I thought I saw a man with a shiny face. A web of shining lightning bolts all over his face. That was odd. Wasn’t it?

  I had a difficult time focusing on what was going on around me. Someone asked if I was secure and checked my chains before the pain started. I was struck over and over again in the neck and forearm with the same sharp pain until I heard people arguing.

  “You said he was mine!”

  “Look at him, Mathews. He can’t keep his eyes open. He can’t stand. With so many heavy doses, in such quick succession, of the purest no less, he’ll be unstable in minutes. He may not even live.”

  “That’s the point.”

  “No. It isn’t. Think about it. Vitale’s Gray Night is about to begin and when the authorities come around to sort the bodies we don’t have to leave them with a mystery. We can leave them him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A known criminal, a killer if everyone is to be believed, caught red handed, literally covered in the blood of innocents and filled with toxin. Maybe he takes the fall for the whole thing, maybe he doesn’t. The point is no one is going to look real hard when they have someone so obvious that they can take credit for solving the whole incident. It’s almost too perfect. He came with Jack. Several people saw them together. He’s a part of it. All we need is a body to lay at his feet. And after Vitale and Jack are both dead I’ll call the police myself.”

  “I know the one.”

  “Get her.”

  The man giving orders took a few steps deeper into the room and addressed me.

  “This would be so much more satisfying if you could understand me. If I could remind you how the drug works. About the growing hunger that comes with too quick an addiction, the uncontrollable rage, the need to indulge. Oh, but I will have such a story to tell Dr. Spurling. To tell her how you were beaten, broken. How you have so graciously contributed to our cause. And no one is left to come for her,” he jumped back at the sound of my chains moving. I tried to reach him, but instead I fell.

  I could smell his fear and I wanted to taste it. I could smell…lilies. And sand. And stagnant water. Old blood. Burning flesh.

  He had Claire. He was right there in front of me! I threw myself forward again, painfully reminded of the chains holding me back as he scurried to the door. I wanted to taste his blood. Sticky and warm flowing down my chin. My enemy slain beneath me. I had done it before. I had done it so many times before, but now I reveled in the thought and let it fill me. I would tear into his flesh. I would shred to ribbons the next living thing to fall within my grasp.

  Child’s laughter filled the room and I couldn’t help but join in. The man standing in the doorway cocked his head at me before stepping aside for a smaller shadow.

  With a grunt, the small shadow was shoved inside and the door slammed shut.

  Without thinking, I jumped at the small shadow curled on the floor, and howled in rage when my fingers fell inches short of reaching it. I strained against the manacles until my wrists bled. The smell of fresh blood excited me, but it also showed me images of more blood, a lifetime of blood. I saw enemies, and friends, an old man in an alley, a pile of discarded parts, fields and fields of them.

  The pile of little shadow beneath my grasp slithered back along the wall, putting as much distance between us as it could. It sat pulling its knees to its chest and pushing its hair out of its eyes. It was a girl. I knew her. The girl I had been looking for. Ruby.

  I thought about what I had wanted to do to her. To rip her open. And in that instance remembered seeing a girl like that once before. In Ruby’s place was the torn, mangled body of a thirteen-year-old girl lying on a riverbank. I watched in horror as I had done so many times before, picturing her ripped apart, but this time…this time the hands that tore into her body were mine. I looked down into the last eyes that had ever loved me as I felt her flesh give way beneath my hands and I screamed.

  I screamed, and screamed, and screamed, and choked on my own vomit before starting again. I clawed at my face, at my eyes. The image would not stop. I screamed in wounded rage, in panic and fear. Ruby stared at me. No longer my sister, but Ruby Jordan. She looked confused. Blank. If I could reach her, she wouldn’t even put up a fight.

  I screamed again and threw myself backwards as hard as I could—which was harder than I should have been able to—and crashed to floor in the darkened corner. I twisted myself around and around, rolling on the floor, wrapping the slack in the chain around me until it was taut. When my will could no longer hold back the flood of rage building inside me, I twisted hard, tightening the chains around me, to the point I wondered which would break first.

  I cried when it abated. And, when I cried, I had plenty of company to cry with me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hours passed. I remembered little of it. I was chained in a small room. I didn’t know why. On reflex, I tightened the chains around me until my mind whited out in pain every time my thoughts coalesced. It was the only way to stop myself.

  There was blood on the floor—mine—but it didn’t matter. New pains erupted from time to time when the door opened. I was beaten. That didn’t matter either.

  Thinking hurt. Not simply more than, but beyond, the physical pain. The excruciating pain forced my mind to retreat. It sent the room swirling. My mind tried to twist into a vision of something else. Something not real.

  I slammed the side of my head into the floor, driving it away. That was longest moment of lucidity I’d had, ever as far as I knew, and I wasn’t going to lose it. I forced myself to have another thought, any thought, anything real. I’d practiced keeping my sanity for years. Practiced focusing on nailing down the bits of reality I could recall when I lost control. This was no different. The pain, the fear, the rage, all combined to drive away my conscious mind and let the bloodthirsty demon growing inside take over. It would be so easy. So simple.

  That way was always so. Screw that. If some new demon was fucking around inside my head, it picked the wrong mind. Pain, fear, rage. Those were not weapons to be used against me. They were old friends.

  So many thoughts. My head resonated with the pain of each image, each word. But that was all it was, all it could do. Ha! It was powerless against me. All it could do was hurt me. I stopped fighting the pain and, with nothing more to resist against, it fled. The fog over my mind rolled away.

  The door opened and the bright light from the hall hurt to look at. I couldn’t focus my eyes, but I saw three figures.

  “He still hasn’t gone for the girl. Should we beat him again?”

  “No time. It’s about to start.”

  “But how is he resisting?”

  “I’m not certain he is. He raved for over an hour. I was sure his mind broke before he curled up like that. I told you too much too soon would break something inside.”

  Was that what happened? Was I broken? My mind shattered? Would I even be able to tell?

  “But if he doesn’t kill the girl—”

  “No matter. You,” one of them said to the largest shadow, “Kill the girl, then hold that man down until Matthews
tells you otherwise. Matthews, unchain him and come meet me up top when it’s finished. You’re not going to want to miss this.”

  “So just lock him in there?”

  “No. Don’t lock the door. No telling if he could even manage to open it anyway.”

  “But if he did? If he’s not too far gone and gets out—”

  “Then he’ll blend into the chaos. The Auction is almost over. I’m making the call to begin on the way to meet Vitale.”

  “He’s in for the surprise of his life.”

  “Literally. Make it quick. I have plans when this is done.”

  The door shut and I was able to keep my eyes open now. Two men were in the room. Lightning-web-face-man, and one of his soldiers. They were going to release me. It was the last mistake they would ever make. I would taste their flesh and—

  No! Think, damn you! It no longer hurt to do so, but the demon inside roared with bloodlust, and hunger, and I couldn’t stop it. I could not shut off the voices screaming for violence like an out of control steam locomotive, but I realized something else. I fought a losing battle for control of the engine and that wasn’t right. It was my mind and the train was foreign. My mind was everything else—the sky, the land, the tracks. Maybe I couldn’t stop the train, but I could damn well change where the tracks led.

  The two lifted the girl off the ground and I knew what the thing holding her wanted to indulge in. I resigned a portion of myself to what would happen next. I let go of the struggle, handed control to the drug induced demon, and focused everything I had left on my two targets until I felt the tracks bend to my will. You may indulge, I thought to the demon born of Gray Night. And the demonic engineer stopped fighting me for control and roared ahead.

  I spoke to get their attention, coughing instead. There was no time. I twisted my body, unraveling the chains, and they fell to the ground beside me. That got their attention.

  I didn’t know what they thought they were going to do and I didn’t wait to find out. The man with the spider-webbed face looked at me, startled.