“No Eli, I’m trying to help you get the residue off your hands. If you had not behaved like a simple primate and needed to touch everything you see, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What about olive oil?”
“Now you’re talking. I have olive oil. But why do I need oil to get it off, soap and water are working just fine.” I’m washing my hands in the kitchen sink as we speak.
“The problem is what you can’t see. There is an abundance of negative psychic energy on you now, attaching itself to your very molecules. It will penetrate your being and begin the slow process of devouring every last bit of humanity and kindness that you have in you. You will be rendered incapable of loving or feeling love or kindness ever again.”
I’m feverishly pouring olive oil all over my hands now. This asshole better not be screwing with me. “Do I just pour it on or do I have to chant or something?”
“Um yes, you should recite this incantation: ‘Numquam adepto alius erectio.’” He says it in his serious tone.
“When will you be here?” My lack of amusement shows in my voice while I now try to wash the oil off my hands. What a dick. Obviously he doesn’t realize that as an attorney I found it useful to study Latin in college. ‘Never get another erection.’
“Pulling over to pick up Carl and I’ll be there in two minutes. Stay out of that room.” He hangs up.
I wait for the phone to hang up on his end, since I’m not touching the Bluetooth with my greasy hands. Rex is in the kitchen staring up at me whining. “Sorry buddy, I know it’s been a rough couple of days.” I check his bowl and fill it with food, but he doesn’t eat. He just lies on the kitchen floor in front of the dish.
“Harry?” I call out, realizing I haven’t seen him in a few minutes. I know she’s nowhere in the house. I can feel it. She’s not here.
The doorbell rings, but it’s not McFruitcake. “Mr. Walker?” There are two sheriff’s deputies standing there.
“Yes?” I don’t recognize either of them.
“Is there a Shayleigh Baynes here?” The taller one asks, mispronouncing her name.
“No, she’s not here. What do you need?” I ask.
“We’re here to bring her in for questioning.”
“She just got back from questioning. She will not be going back,” I snap.
The bigger cop with the enormous belly dons a faux hurt expression and faces his partner. “Did he just get sassy with me?”
“Bear, I think he did get a little sassy with you.” The cop nods, looking at me with disapproval.
“Boy, let me explain some things to you. We do things a little different on the county level–” Bear is cut off by Harry coming through the back door yelling out Shay’s name. It’s a good thing too. I’m still an assistant district attorney and they have no business behaving the way they are.
“Bear, what the hell are you doing here?” Harry belts out the greeting and immediately offers his hand to shake Bear’s.
“I’m here looking for a POI, for Glass down at PHPD.” He squeezes Harry’s hand hard enough for Harry to wince.
“Well Bear, I hope that your interest isn’t in my little girl.” Harry’s tone is laced with warning.
“They‘re looking for Shay,” I inform him. Harry’s expression falls.
“Well, Bear, I’m not sure who’s got you going on this wild goose chase. But we can’t find her either. You are welcome to come in and help us look for her or be on your way so we can.” Harry’s got some balls. These were never his guys, and he’s taking a real risk dismissing them like they were underlings.
Rex starts making a gagging sound from the kitchen. Shit! Did he get in the room and eat some of that stuff that was on the floor? “Excuse me, I’m going to check on the dog.”
In the kitchen, Rex is dry heaving. I want to join him when I hear McFruitcake’s voice. “Commissioner Baynes, have you found her?”
“No, McNab, we haven’t.” I’m a little irritated by Harry’s relief.
“Well Harry, if she’s not here, we’re going to head out. I don’t like doing that asshole’s dirty work anyway; too bad for him that you are out of his jurisdiction.” Bear lets out a greasy laugh, then stops abruptly. “Is that smoke?”
“Oh Jesus!” The sound of Harry’s voice travels across the living room with his motion.
I stand up from Rex prairie-dogging over the kitchen island and see smoke coming from the hallway. “What the hell?” Grabbing the fire extinguisher from under the stove top, I head for the fire. Bear has requested a fire truck but hasn’t progressed further into the house. “McNab, what’s going on?”
McNab ignores me. “Carl?” I yell out, but he doesn’t answer. He also just runs through the living room toward the smoke. Leave it to this brain trust to run toward a fire instead of away from it. We’ve already established that Shay isn’t here. McNab starts yelling something that I can’t understand with all the other noise. Sniffing at the air, I smell the same thing from the room, the smell of the river when the algae blooms, and it goes stagnant.
The cacophony of sounds invades all of my senses at once, bombarding me with too much input to process. People screaming for Shay, McFruitcake yelling for Carl, Rex gagging and whining, and the two sheriffs still in the foyer with their radios going crazy. For some reason there are other people in my house. I have no idea who they are or where they came from. They are all running back and forth through the house with all of this weird equipment in black crates with silver-tipped corners and clasps. McNab is barking orders at everyone and Harry is still calling out to Shay.
Harry left the French doors to the patio open and I can clearly see the rays of the sunset streaming through the bottle of Johnny Walker. Jesus Christ, I want to down that whole bottle.
The chaos takes over my mind and I feel like an observer, sitting and watching in the background. Motion slows; my perception becomes keener for the things closer to me. The noise becomes muted and distant until I can hear almost nothing. The scenery is losing focus. My first thought is that I’m too young for a heart attack or stroke.
“Elijah.” The sound wisps by my ear like something I almost thought was there. There’s no way I heard that.
Trish pushes her way through the cops in the foyer. She zeros in on me and stomps in my direction, yelling some kind of demand at me and waving her phone. Her mouth is moving, but there is no sound coming out.
“Ah, yes, the collection is almost complete. Only a few missing.” The voice starts in my right ear and moves around behind me to my left.
Three firefighters enter the house and pass other people walking from the hallway to the front door. One of them is staring at me; he’s small and his steely blue eyes are disturbingly penetrating. I feel a sense of violation with him just looking at me.
I hear the voice again, but more clear, less of a whisper. Looking around to find the source of the voice, I find nothing. Dread overcomes me as two hands rest on my shoulders from behind. I’m not sure why I can’t move, but I can’t. My feet are glued to the floor.
Trish’s face is contorting with what appears to be hysterical cries for me to respond. She slaps me in the face, but I can’t react. Harry comes and takes her by the shoulders, leading her away toward the door. She’s protesting, but he’s pointing toward the smoke.
Carl emerges from the hallway and glances in my direction briefly. Everything is still moving in slow motion, and I’m not moving at all.
A putrid smell invades my senses, but I’m too paralyzed to react. Cold lips brush against my ear. “Elijah, old friend, look at this mess.” He tsks.
His dark and smoky form glides around in front of me. His movements are so fluid, hypnotizing. “What are you?”
“Elijah, I’m hurt.” He touches his dark chin down to his shoulder, feigning offense.
My lids won’t blink and I can’t take my eyes off of him. I ask again. “What are you?”
“Elijah, I am your friend. Friends help each other, and right now you are
going to help me,” he says, pacing in front of me.
My eyes dart to the bottle of whiskey outside, then back to the form or whatever it is in front of me. I feel like I can’t disobey him; he has a hold on me and I don’t know what it is. “Why would I help you?”
“Because you have something I want, and I have something you want. It’s the basics of fair trade. Well, ‘trade,’ anyway.” He clasps his hands behind his back.
“What could you possibly have that I want?” My tone challenges him. It’s apparent that he doesn’t like being challenged.
“The answer to that question is as plain as the nose on your face.” He pulls tendrils of smoke down from his chin, forming a beard to fool with. “It’s so much more than that bottle of Johnny Walker outside. I bet it would burn blissfully on the way down and all your troubles would melt.”
This has to be some sort of hallucination, something from the fumes from the house burning down. Shit, my house is burning down.
“Eli, I need you to focus. I’m telling you that I have the one thing you desire more than anything.” He’s gotten irritated with my lack of attention.
“You still haven’t told me what you are. Are you some kind of nightmare or–” He grabs my throat lightly to bring me back to center with him.
“Pay attention to me, Elijah.” He slaps my face as if to wake me up from a heavy sleep.
My line of vision is drawn to the kid with the steely eyes; he’s staring at me again as he walks through the room carrying another case.
“Elijah!”
“You haven’t told me what you are. What’s your name?” There’s a haze prohibiting me from thinking clearly.
“They call me the Specter.” He waits for my reaction. This sounds familiar to me, but I can’t place it.
The great room is filling with smoke. I know I should be trying to get out of the house, but my legs and mind won’t work. I don’t have the will to make them react.
“Elijah, I have what you want.” The Specter’s voice is agitated, and he’s holding my face in his hands.
“What do I want?” I ask.
He places a lock of hair directly under my nose. I inhale the beautiful scent of gardenias. “Shay.”
“Yes. Shay. I have her. If you want her back, you’ll give me what I want.” He snatches the hair back.
“What do you want?”
“I want Carl.” He pauses while we both watch Carl walk across the living room back toward the hallway. “Dead.”
“What?” I’m puzzled by this request.
The kid with the steely blue eyes walks with purpose toward me, never taking his eyes off of me. He picks up one of the stools from the breakfast bar and swings it like a bat, hitting me in the shoulder, and knocking me over.
All at once the noise is overpowering and everything is moving at a normal speed. Albeit accelerated by the fact that there’s a fire in my house, yet people are still filing in and out.
“What the fuck was that?” I stay on the floor for a minute to regain my bearings.
The kid says nothing and just stares at me. McFruitcake comes from behind. “Pitch, what’s wrong?”
“This guy, he needed help,” he says in a nervous tone.
“Help?” I ask dubiously. “He just whacked me with a barstool.”
“Pitch?” McFruitcake looks down at him with disapproval. It figures this is one of his guys.
“What was I supposed to do? The dude was in trouble, he was in a trance, and he was feeling completely helpless. And fuck if I was going to touch him.” Pitch is waving his arms in wild gestures.
McFruitcake puts his hands on his hips and examines Pitch. “Good job. Now pick him up.”
Pitch leans his hand down to me, but I get up without taking it. It’s then that I notice the difference in size between us. He’s even shorter than Aiden. This kid’s got some balls, I’ll give him that. I tower over him and look him in the eye. “Never again.”
“Whatever, man.” Pitch turns his back on me, dismissing me with his hand motions. I watch him walk away with a strange rock to his gait.
“It’s fog, not smoke,” McFruitcake says.
“What?”
“There’s no fire; it’s fog billowing from the bedroom.” He motions toward the hallway. “The firemen are leaving, but we’ve found some very strange readings.”
I can’t answer; I’m just looking around at the mayhem in my house. I’m also trying to figure out what just happened. Did that just happen? What the hell is the Specter? Oh, and my biggest fear right now is that Trish is going to find her way back in here.
“Eli?” McFruitcake barks. “What happened to you?”
My head shakes from side to side slowly. I’m trying to process everything that happened. Is what I saw real? “I don’t know.”
“Look, you are going to have to trust me. You are going to have to accept the possibility that there are things at work here that you don’t understand,” McFruitcake says with resolve.
“He has Shay.” The words spill out of my mouth almost involuntarily.
“Who has her?” he asks.
“The Specter. The thing from her comic has her,” I answer. My attention is drawn to Rex, who’s still making retching noises. McFruitcake’s face blanches. “It’s just a little dog puke. He must’ve eaten something disagreeable.”
I lean down and stroke Rex’s head to comfort him. “It’s okay, boy.” At that, Rex finally purges whatever was making him ill. He spits out a strange piece of clear pliable plastic. It’s more substantial than a zip lock baggie, but not quite rigid. There’s some sort of liquid oozing from some of the punctures that Rex put in it. I pick it up, examining it to try to figure out what it is. I’m worried that he could get sick from this.
One of the deputies comes into the kitchen. “We are about to…” He stops for a moment, taking in the scene of McFruitcake and I on the floor with a pool of dog vomit and this plastic thing. “What have you got there?”
McFruitcake looks at me with panic in his eyes and grabs the plastic thing. “Bad boy, you have to stop chewing on shoes.” He looks up at the cop. “Damn dog got my Doctor Scholl’s insert.” More than half of the plastic thing is concealed by his hand; he quickly slides it into his pocket. Odd. “You were saying?”
“We’re about to leave. I just wanted to let you know we’d appreciate a call if Miss Baynes comes back.” He hands me his card.
The deputies leave. McFruitcake leans back on the kitchen cabinet and releases a ragged breath. Rex puts his tail between his legs and heads for his bed in the mud room. That can only mean one thing – Trish.
“Eli?” she barks. I press up against the cabinet next to McFruitcake. He looks over at me, puzzled. I put my finger to my lips, then point upward and shake my head as an indication that she’s the kind of trouble I can’t cope with right now. “Where the fuck are you, Eli? I know you are in here, you little chicken-shitted prick.” Her voice fades as she walks toward the patio.
I roll my eyes and blow out a breath. McFruitcake looks over at me, his expression changed to relief. It’s like he knows what we just avoided. “Do you know what that thing is?”
“By all accounts, my best bet would be Trish.”
“No.” I look at him like he’s stupid and point to his pocket. “The plastic thing. Do I need to take Rex to the vet?”
“No, he’ll be fine. But um…” He takes it out of his pocket and squishes it in his hands a bit, examining it. “But whoever this belonged to won’t.”
“What the hell is it?”
“It’s a saline breast implant, Eli. A breast implant.” He cuts me a hard look waiting for my reaction. For which he doesn’t have to wait long.
“Are you sure?” How the hell does he know that? My eyes fall to his chest for some reason.
“I live in L.A., I’m sure,” he deadpans, continuing to handle the implant.
“Fuck.” I bang my head against the cabinet. “Well, what’s your move?”
&n
bsp; “How do you mean?” His eyes are curious.
“I’m sure you’ve come to the same conclusion I have.”
“That this little bag o’ fun belongs to Taffy? Yes Eli, we’ve reached the same conclusion.” He pauses, looking at me with utter seriousness. “Now we figure out how Rex got it and where its counterpart is.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to give him any ideas about calling the cops or turning me in. That’s pretty damning evidence right there. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. Then we hear it like the oncoming screeches of Mothra. “Eli! You fucking douche canoe, are you hiding from me?”
I look straight up to see her leaning over the island looking down at McNab and me. “No Trish, we were just trying to figure some things out.”
“Like who’s going to swallow tonight?” She shifts her gaze between McNab and me and makes a clicking sound with her tongue. “Where the fuck is Shay?”
“Isn’t that the million dollar question?” McNab answers.
Trish walks around the island to the same side we are on. Jesus, even her footfalls are annoying. “You must be the ‘Mysterious McNab.’” Trish bends down rigid at the waist, pushing her tits together trying to make them look bigger, and offers her hand.
McNab slips the implant back into his cargo pants, leaving his hand in there. “Yes, and you must be Trish.”
She plasters a fake smile on her face, only a little put out by his not shaking her hand. “Oh yeah, Shay mentioned you have some ‘peculiarities.’” She violates him with her eyes, I squirm a little for him. Her gaze rests a moment longer on his biceps and she licks her lips. “Oh yeah, she’s told me about you.”
McNab lets out a cough, looking a little green around the gills. He nervously glances in my direction. This is the part where I’m supposed to be upset because of the implications Trish just unsuccessfully dropped on us like a stale fart. It’s all part of her divide-and-conquer routine. This is pretty typical for Trish. But honestly, I’m not really the jealous sort. Besides, Shay may be screwed in the head, but I seriously doubt she’d add a fourth wheel to this asexual gangbang of emotions. The only thing getting fucked around here is my heart.
INK: Vanishing Point (Book 2) Page 14