Dan was no exception to this human need to make sense of things. His mind was its own cold storm of thoughts. He told himself he just needed to know what Brennachecke wanted him to do now that it was fucking snowing in the middle of July. He told himself that he just needed to know for himself if the Kessler girls were actually here or not. Maybe he could just break them out and they could all just go home. Sure, that wasn’t the plan, he thought. But the plan didn’t make any sense to him anymore.
He got all the way to the front of the Raj without seeing another soul, or so he thought. Beverly’s sirens—the naked, disfigured, and left-for-dead women secured to the front pillars—had been at last put out of their misery by the cold. The snow had covered them enough to disguise their true natures from a distance. Dan didn’t recognize them for what they were as he stood in the parking lot flanked by the rows of trees on either side of the long driveway. The limbs of the trees were breaking under the pressure of the heavy wet snow on their thickly leaved branches. Dan felt oddly sympathetic toward them. As he looked up at the Raj washed in the soft yellow glow of the lights in the windows, he wondered if maybe he was breaking under the pressure too. But even if he was, he didn’t care anymore. He was cold and wet and the only thing that would warm him up would be knowing what the hell he should be doing. When he was finally close enough to see that the snow-covered pillars at the entrance to the Raj had dead bodies wrapped around them, it still took him a second to understand what he was seeing.
“Jesus!” he squealed as he fell back down the steps in horror, immediately looking around to see if his outburst had drawn any attention. The Raj was buttoned up tight against the snow and the cold. He was safe from discovery. Standing up again, he looked at the lit windows and weighed his options for gaining entry.
It was surprising, even to Dan himself, how quickly he settled on climbing the frozen limbs of the sirens to get to the balcony on the second floor. But it seemed like the best course of action because the only two real alternatives were going in through the front door or going around and finding a service entrance out back, both of which would not allow him to observe much before he inevitably ran into a pirate of some sort or another, who would surely end up sounding the alarm. He wanted information, not a body count. Or so he thought, as he climbed up the ladders of frozen dead human flesh. He quietly pulled himself over the balcony and peeked into the window, not suspecting for a moment that everything was about to change.
He saw Brennachecke standing closest to the balcony doors. The man seemed to be in an intense staring contest with one of the men who had been learning to fly, a man who was now swapping blood and getting blown by some woman. Quite obviously this was the Man-in-Charge. There were about a half dozen bored men with guns in the room as well. Dan supposed they were bodyguards of some kind. The doors to the library were closed. He didn’t have the slightest idea what kind of sicko shit was going down in there, but he figured Brennachecke was explaining why they couldn’t continue their little pilot school and that it was not going over too well. Why the Man-in-Charge needed to be blown while he received the information was beyond him. Blood pirates were crazy. That was the only explanation he could come up with. And it didn’t matter; it’s not like he cared who had the man’s johnson in her mouth. Brennachecke obviously didn’t care either, which was perfect because if the old soldier would just look over he’d be able to signal him without anybody else being the wiser.
He watched the Man-in-Charge blow his load in the lady’s mouth, then felt his blood drain as the woman stood up and smiled like she’d just been given a diamond ring for her birthday, daintily wiped her mouth, and turned around to flirt with Brennachecke.
Beverly?
It wasn’t a question. He had no doubt that he was looking at his lost wife-to-be flaunting her naked body at a man he’d trusted his life with.
Beverly.
Alive.
Sucking the cock of some other man.
He felt something stir inside him.
Something wild.
Something dangerous.
She wasn’t a prisoner. She wasn’t being raped. She wasn’t missing. The thoughts were like daggers in his heart and they kept coming faster and faster. She’d left him. She’d left him to be a fucking blood pirate. No, to fuck a blood pirate. King of the blood pirates, apparently.
The cage door inside his mind that had been holding that dangerous, wild something back was suddenly flung open. And Brennachecke’s known the whole goddamn time. Somehow in Dan’s mind that betrayal was even worse than anything Beverly had done. He’d almost expected this of her, he told himself, even though it wasn’t at all true. But Brennachecke? The man was his friend.
Had been his friend, he corrected himself, literally frothing at the mouth, seething with anger now. That’s why he never wanted to come here looking for her. He knew we’d find her here. He knew I would go fucking nuts and start some shit. So instead of helping his friend deal with the truth, he took the easy way out and just lied to my face.
For almost a year!
The man had lied to him for 345 days. Right to his face. Over and over again. The whole time saying that doing the right thing, even when it was the hard thing, was what made man worthy of his fellow man.
Dan sucked in a hissing breath of freezing, damp air and felt the coldness spread inside him. It seeped from his lungs into his blood and then rocketed into his brain. But the cold did not bring calm for the cuckolded man. He would not be calm again until death finally put him out of his anguish.
Fucking hypocrite!
Dan was breathing so heavy at this point, his breath had started to fog the glass of the French doors. Brennachecke, he thought. You’re going to fucking die.
Beverly suddenly looked over at him and laughed.
Laughed!
That was it. Dan was done. Though only human blood flowed in his veins and he had no demonic monster hiding inside him, ready to knock him out and destroy everything in sight, he went as berserk as his human body and mind would allow. He kicked in the French doors, drawing an arrow from his quiver as he did so, and allowed himself to be consumed by a new mission objective.
Everybody in that room was going to die.
But Brennachecke was going to die first.
* * *
“She could have at least found me something black,” Bobby-Leigh muttered loud enough to make her sister smile and open her eyes. They’d finished their twenty-minute meditation a few minutes ago and were now in the resting state, slowly coming out of it.
“Your choker goes good with the pastels, dude.”
“You know that’s not true.”
Jen laughed. Of course it wasn’t true. Why her sister couldn’t part with the dog collars after all the trouble they’d caused her was not something she’d ever understand. Why had she worn them religiously since that day at Walmart? What could they possible represent for her? These were all things she knew she’d never talk to Bobby-Leigh about. Things she would never understand. She almost suggested taking them off, but knew better. Besides, she actually didn’t look that bad. Bobby-Leigh was just like her sister; she looked good in just about anything, spiked dog collar chokers and pastel yoga shirt and pants included (well, almost). But looking good and feeling good about how you look are two very different things.
“You’re like a ray of sunshine on a dark and stormy morning.”
“Fuck that.”
Jen laughed again. Bobby-Leigh didn’t want to smile, but she couldn’t help it. Her sister’s laugh was infectious. It took her a few seconds to get her familiar scowl back in place. With the exception of the raven-black dye job that still held fast among the streaks of her stubborn natural red hair and the ever-present spiked dog collar chokers, the little girl’s entire identity had been washed away in the hot water of the shower, which, for as good as it felt after everything they’d been though, was not much of a consolation to her.
Who the fuck is this girl looking back at
me? she thought as she eyed her reflection in the bathroom mirror from her position seated on one of the beds.
The yoga pants, rolled up at the hems because they were too big, and the organic cotton long-sleeved yoga shirt burned her pride like holy water. Jesus Christ. She couldn’t imagine a more inappropriate outfit. Her painstakingly cultivated Lolita-goth stylings were just not something folks who stayed at Ayurveda health spas like the Raj wore. And even though she knew the priority had been to just get her naked body covered again, she still felt ridiculous and vulnerable.
I’d almost rather just be naked, she thought, but that wasn’t true.
“I wish I at least had my makeup. I mean, shitballs, there has to be makeup here somewhere, right? She could have at least brought me some lipstick and eyeliner.”
“Beverly doesn’t even wear clothes anymore, you think she’s thinking about makeup? She doesn’t give two shits about that stuff, dude. We’re lucky to have anything more than those stupid robes to put on.”
“Whatever, you look good in anything and never cared about clothes anyway.”
Jennifer was wearing almost the exact same outfit as her sister, except for the collars around her neck. The torn, soiled, and dirty clothing they’d arrived in was in a pile in the corner of the room.
Bobby-Leigh was right, of course. Jen didn’t care at all about how the clothes looked on her. All she cared about was that she was able to find a place to secretly strap the remaining karambit blade to her body and that the shirt and pants were loose enough to not restrict her movement. It’s probably healthy for Bobby-Leigh to take a break from the emo goth thing for a day or two anyway, she thought to herself. Nobody’s identity should be that wrapped up in what they wear.
“Do we have a plan for when Brennachecke comes?” Bobby-Leigh asked, already knowing the answer was no.
Before her big sister could confirm it, though, the sound of automatic weapons being fired came blasting through the hallway of the Raj. Immediately, both Jennifer and Bobby-Leigh knew exactly what to do. They didn’t need to talk about it. They didn’t need to prepare for it. Although neither of them had ever heard a gunfight before, to say nothing of one with automatic weapons, they had no misconceptions about what the sounds were or what they meant: It was time to go. Time to take advantage of the confusion and get the fuck out of Dodge before they had to deal with Brennachecke, or something worse.
“Shoes,” Jen said.
Bobby-Leigh was already moving off the bed toward the pile of dirty laundry before her sister had even opened her mouth. She tossed Jen’s bloodstained sneakers out of the pile to her sister and slipped on her own Mary Janes, hating how the filthy shoes clashed with her new ensemble almost as much as how it clashed with the dog collars, or more accurately how her new ensemble clashed with the dog collars and her filthy (but perfect) shoes. As they huddled at the door, Bobby-Leigh suddenly ran back and grabbed their robes as well. They’d need all the layers they could get for the weather outside.
Somebody screamed. A man, but not Brennachecke. Both girls knew he was not the kind of man who screamed. Jen wondered whether their surrogate father was even in the building. Maybe they’d manage to slip away without ever seeing him again. But somehow she knew in her heart that was not how this was going to play out.
Bam-bam. Bam. More gunfire erupted.
A stray bullet suddenly ripped through the wall and lodged itself in the headboard of the bed Bobby-Leigh had been sitting on only minutes ago. Both girls flinched.
The adrenaline floodgates opened, and Jen felt the demon inside her stir, its crazed, bloodthirsty eyes fluttering and half-open. Effortlessly she switched that inner lens of her experience to autofocus and adjusted the depth of field, muting the world around her. As the now familiar detachment spread out from her mind, she felt the demon’s eyes close as the beast within once again settled into oblivious slumber.
Bobby-Leigh looked at her sister, dreading what she might see looking back at her, but she had nothing to fear. Somehow in the craziness of the day, Jen had tamed the beast inside her. She smiled, and even though bullets were flying all around them, she felt safe for the first time in as long as she could remember.
Tears of relief filled her eyes.
Jennifer misinterpreted them. “I’m okay, dude.”
“I know,” Bobby-Leigh said and smiled, wiping tears from her eyes.
The two sisters shared a look and suddenly transcended time and space, transcended the very fabric of the universe itself. Their look connected them together beyond their shared hereditary biology, beyond their mutual familial love, even beyond the glimpses of pure and absolute consciousness they’d occasionally felt during meditation. For a single ephemeral moment, they experienced the fundamental truth at the core of all existence. Reflected in the other’s eyes, Jennifer and Bobby-Leigh saw how all things are one and nothing at the same time.
But the human mind is simply incapable of reconciling the ramifications inherent in that true singularity, and so as quickly and profoundly as it had come to them, the moment broke apart. Reality came crashing back in, and the universe was broken into an infinite number of individual pieces again. Folks experience moments of enlightenment like this all the time, but rarely remember them beyond the warm, confident afterglow they leave in their wake. The Kessler sisters were no different. Within fractions of a millisecond from the time their shared transcendental experience began, thoughts surfaced again and broke it apart.
Jimmy was dead.
Brennachecke was after them.
Beverly had saved them.
The Raj was being torn apart by gunfire.
They needed to get out.
They needed to get out now.
They needed to get out right now.
Jen put one of her hands on the doorknob. Then, thinking for a second before pulling it open, she popped the karambit knife from its hiding place against the small of her back and tossed it to her sister. There was no back and forth about who should have the knife.
“One . . . two . . .” Jen said, as Bobby-Leigh flicked the blade open and gritted her teeth in a determined snarl.
“Three!”
Jen whipped the door open.
* * *
Beverly didn’t have any idea why Dan had just shot Brennachecke with an arrow. She’d thought they were on the same team. And even if they weren’t, she couldn’t imagine a scenario where the goody-goody old man could have done something to deserve wrath like that from a normal person.
Bam-bam-bam.
The sound of gunshots vibrated through the air as the guards opened fire with their automatic weapons. Beverly took a stray bullet in the calf and fell to her knees. She felt no pain. In fact, she didn’t realize she’d been hit until she looked down and saw the blood oozing out of the wound.
“What the fuck are you shooting at!” she screamed as she watched Brennachecke, with the end of Dan’s arrow sticking out of his back, turn and launch himself like a linebacker into the guard closest to him, bringing the surprised man to the ground. The old soldier came up with the man’s AR-15 and the man himself didn’t come up at all.
Dan stepped forward and nocked another arrow. Brennachecke shot him in the gut just as the missile was released. The arrow zipped past Brennachecke’s head, taking a chunk of his ear with it.
The old soldier didn’t even flinch. Beverly really wished she knew what the beef was between her ex and the old man, but being clueless didn’t stop her from enjoying the face-off between the two. She looked at the MIC to see if he was enjoying this as much as she was, but the man was all glassy eyed and pale with fear. What a disappointing sorry sack of shit, she thought, as one of the three remaining guards turned his weapon on the fallen archer. Fractions of a second before the guard put bullets in the man who’d almost killed Brennachecke with his fucking arrows, the old soldier inexplicitly shot the pirate in the head and saved Dan’s life.
What the fuck? Beverly thought, but her attention was sud
denly taken by the sound of the Man-in-Charge’s screaming. For a second all eyes turned to the MIC as he ripped the IV line out of his arm and fled the room like a scared little girl.
What the fuck?! Beverly thought for the second time, as bullets started to fly from the two remaining guards.
Bam-bam-bam. Bam.
Bam. Bam. Bam-bam-bam.
She dropped all the way down to the floor as the projectiles smashed into the walls all around her, but missed Brennachecke completely.
“What the fuck are you idiots shooting at!” she repeated. But before either of her men could answer, Brennachecke cut them down. For a second, Beverly thought he was going to murder her too, but he didn’t.
“Take me to the Kessler girls,” the old soldier with the arrow through his chest said to the Blood Queen.
Beverly smiled, but before she could respond, Dan pierced her heart with an arrow. Brennachecke turned, mechanically raised his gun on Dan, and fired a slug into the man’s chest.
“Fucking . . . hypocrite . . .” were the last words Dan ever spoke. Brennachecke was sorry about that, but his grief and pity was quickly compartmentalized. Dan was a loss, but the mission continued. One glance at Beverly was all he needed to know she was dead and he’d have to find the girls himself. Wincing as he moved, really feeling the arrow in him now that the adrenaline of the gunfight was subsiding, he opened the bullet-riddled library doors and headed into the hall.
The Man-in-Charge—recovered from his cowardly instincts, armed with a combat shotgun, and backed up by a dozen men—was waiting for him. Nobody spoke. There were no demands that Brennachecke put his weapon down. There were no questions about whether or not Beverly lived.
The MIC smiled a gleeful smile.
There was no deal to be made anymore. Brennachecke would teach them to fly or he would die where he stood. Neither one of them had to say this out loud. The only real question was what would happen once he’d trained enough of the pirates as pilots.
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