All Souls: A Gatehouse Thriller

by Karin Kaufman

  Just as I hit the porch, the front door swung wide. An overly bloodied zombie exited, I entered, and no one blinked an eye. I made my way through what I supposed was the living room—orange walls, green couch, cartoonish art posters—the words “fire marshal” coming to mind. There were fifty, sixty people knocking elbows and drinks in the small space, and more in the kitchen at the back of the house.

  I began to worry that someone would hit my umbrella and accidentally release the pellet. Unlikely as that was, I now felt sharply the outline of the umbrella when someone bumped into my left side and it pressed against my ribs and hip. My gun was one of the smallest made, and it nestled perfectly just forward of my right hip, but I was now hyper-aware of it too, worried that some drunk would grab me or want to hug me with alcohol-fueled delight—and he’d feel the metal at my waist.

  I went straight for the drinks table, grabbed a beer, and thumbed it open. Taking what I hoped would look like a long party-girl gulp—dry swallows, my tongue over the tab opening—I scanned the living room for Hollow. When I saw him, and who he was talking to, I forgot the fake gulps. Beer dribbled out the tab, down my chin, and onto my jacket. I wiped it away. If I looked like an idiot, good. A drunken idiot? Better. My God, I would need that cover. My hands started to tremble. I shoved my left hand in my jacket pocket and with my right gripped the beer can.

  Manifest Manifest. He’d dyed his light brown hair a reddish brown, and his left eye had a freshly scabbed cut above it and a hint of discoloration in the skin below, but I’d recognized him right away—the cheekbones like Buick tail fins, the well-muscled chest. He was the Sack who had murdered Steven Lake and a tourist in New Mexico. What was he doing in Fort Collins talking to Hollow? Was he working with him?

  I looked away, shifting my attention toward the kitchen door while keeping the Sacks in my peripheral vision. I had to carry out my plan and get Hollow out the back door, but seeing Manifest Manifest had shocked me into paralysis. I had to shake it off. Nathan was waiting outside, and as the clocked ticked on, the chances increased that someone would ask him what he was doing lurking at the rear door.

  When the two Sacks clinked beer cans, Manifest Manifest taking off for the kitchen and Hollow remaining in the living room, it was time for me to move, before any other party guest moved in. Planting a slightly inebriated smile on my face, I marched up to Hollow. I was the drunk with the superb dope deal, the goofy girl who nevertheless knows whereof she speaks when it comes to quality hash. I played it as best I could, and he promptly fell for it.

  Marijuana might be legal in Colorado, I told him, but not hash, and I had four ounces of it—a felony. We had to do this deal in the dark, by my car. So we made our way to the kitchen, his arm across my shoulder, my arm around his waist. Steps away from the back door, Manifest Manifest called out to him. We turned as a unit, dancers in a promenade, and Hollow told him to wait. For a sickening moment, as Manifest eyed Hollow as though the Festal were a child about to open a forbidden cookie jar, I thought the Sack might follow us outside. Instead he rolled his eyes. He’d seen this behavior before.

  I went down the back steps first, Hollow behind me. Without turning, I saw Nathan to my left, leaning casually on the back of the house, head down, smoking a cigarette or a who-knows-what someone from the party had given him. Before I turned to face Hollow, I gave the back yard and the parked cars to my right the once-over. The only possible hitch to the plan was a couple in one of the cars, but it became apparent, as they slid low in the backseat, that they weren’t interested in the three of us.

  Nathan reached out, grabbed Hollow’s arm with one hand, and with the other hand pulled the gun from his holster and jabbed the muzzle into Hollow’s back. He leaned forward, blocking the gun from view, and whispered something into Hollow’s ear. The Sack went weak in the knees.

  “Move now,” I heard Nathan say. He kept his hold on Hollow’s arm and shot me a glance over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  We hurried to Nathan’s SUV. Hollow’s gait was peculiar, tottering, and when Nathan opened the back door and told him to get in, his foot twice missed the running board before he connected, pulled himself up, and slid across the seat. Nathan got in next to him, and I took the driver’s seat. Before Hollow could fasten his seatbelt, which to my amusement Nathan had instructed him to do, I’d driven from the curb.

  “I’m going to put two bags over your head,” Nathan said.

  “What? No. Why?” Hollow sputtered.

  “Relax, I’m leaving the bottoms open, you’re not going to suffocate.”

  In the rearview mirror I saw Nathan slip two plastic grocery bags over Hollow’s head, one after the other, leaving the bottoms open for air. Double protection. Hollow couldn’t see a thing, and after I turned up the radio and drove in loops for ten minutes, he would have no idea what direction we were traveling in or, most important, where we ended up. Nathan then dug around in the Sack’s pockets. He found Hollow’s phone and threw it out the window. All the while, arms limp at his side, Hollow made no move to stop Nathan or lift the bags from his head.

  At the first stoplight I jacked the volume on the radio then motioned to Nathan for something to write with. He took a pen and the SUV rental contract from his inside coat pocket and handed them to me. At the next stoplight I wrote “Saw Man Man” on the contract and gave it to Nathan. As he slid the contract back into his pocket, he nodded at me.

  Waiting to make a right on College Avenue, I almost laughed aloud when a car full of teenagers chuckled and pointed at Hollow, our Sack in a sack. Any other night and we would have had trouble—someone would have called the police on us—but there was nothing odd about Hollow tonight.

  One glance at Nathan in the mirror, to see if he’d noticed the kids laughing, erased the smile from my face. His expression was hard as stone, and his right hand rested underneath his coat where his holster sat. If Hollow made a move for Nathan, me, or the door, he’d die in an instant.

  It gave me a weird feeling seeing Nathan like that. He’d been a hunter, and as a hunter you learned to appear ruthless, even mentally disturbed, in order to throw Sacks off their game, but Hollow couldn’t see him. Nathan had never told me how he became a hunter, what cruel act had led him to Gatehouse, and I’d never asked. It was a private matter. Some hunters opened up about it, some didn’t, but you never asked. Maybe like Kath he’d once had children. Or a wife before Lydia. Now I wondered.

  Back at the Overstreets’ business, I honked three times. When the bay door rose, I nosed the SUV inside and turned off the radio. Hall’s mouth dropped open when she caught sight of Nathan and the Sack in the backseat, and Zack, who couldn’t stop grinning, yanked open my door the second the wheels stopped turning.

  “Damn, it’s good to see you.” He looked back to Nathan. “So you’re—”

  Nathan mouthed “No names,” motioned for Zack to open the back door, then ordered Hollow out.

  Protesting that he couldn’t see, Hollow moved slowly, his arms outstretched and grasping, complaining that he was going to trip. Nathan reached out and whipped off the bags, and Hollow gasped and threw his hands to his face as though warding off invisible blows. When he realized the blows weren’t coming, he looked around the bay in wonderment, as if, carted off from his world by aliens, he found himself in a strange and incomprehensible land where people worked and tables laden with booze and dope weren’t part of the decor.

  “Sit and don’t move,” Nathan said to Hollow, pointing at a metal folding chair. “Watch him,” he said to Zack. He gestured with his head to the far side of the bay and I followed. He wanted to know where we were, if it was safe, and if the people who owned the building knew what we did for a living. My answers reassured him, as did the fact that no one in our world had ever heard of the Overstreets.

  “Is there anything here that gives away their name or address?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think of that.” I ran my eyes over the bay and was relieved I found nothing, not even a c
heesy calendar with their business name on it. “I don’t see anything.” I rubbed my nose and pulled back lipstick-covered fingers.

  “Let’s make sure Hollow keeps his eyes front anyway. Here.” He pulled out a handkerchief, an old-fashioned cloth handkerchief, of all things, and handed it to me.

  “How are Sacks finding out where porters live?” I asked as I began to wipe the makeup from my face. I couldn’t believe I was still walking around looking like a cat. “I can see how they found out about Vogel, but what about the Boulder and Fort Collins porters? And all those green circles on your map?”

  “All it takes is one careless comment to the wrong person—or one infiltrator.”

  “Do you think Kath knew where the other porters lived?”

  “Possibly, but with the numbers we’re seeing, it’s more likely there are other infiltrators among hunters.”

  “How do we know who they are? Hell, Zack could be one for all I know.” I looked back to where Zack and Hall were sitting, Hall with her eyes focused, laser-like, on Hollow, Zack prying a bit of pepperoni off an old slice of pizza. “Though Zack ...”

  “Don’t ever be fooled by what appears to be an easygoing nature,” Nathan said. “Or by what appears to be passion. Either one or anything in between.”

  “Well, I was dead wrong about Kath, wasn’t I?”

  “So was I, and it’s my business to know, not yours. Let’s go talk to this Festal.”

  Hollow’s eyes grew large as Nathan approached. I had no idea what he’d said to the Sack back at the house, but it had made Hollow compliant as a quaking mouse. I quickly unloaded my umbrella and put it away in my pack.

  “I haven’t got time for games,” Nathan said, taking a chair opposite Hollow. “Where’s the Fort Collins porter?”

  Hollow stared as if Nathan had gone mad, his small eyes growing larger in his egg of a forehead.

  Nathan moved to the edge of his seat and Hollow reared back. “I asked you a question.”

  “But I can’t.”

  “If you want to go home, you can. Now.”

  Paige opened the office door and took a step inside the bay. “More pizza, anyone?” Her eyes traveled expectantly from face to face, frowning when she hit mine. “Why’s your makeup all smudged?”

  I heard Hollow giggle.

  “No, thank you,” Nathan said.

  Hollow looked over his shoulder. “Hello, ma’am. I’d love to make your acquaintance. Maybe put you in my phone book. What’s your name?”

  “No.” I threw a finger to my lips. Confusion lining her face, Paige backed out of the bay and shut the door. Hollow turned to me and continued to giggle.

  Nathan lunged. He grabbed Hollow by the neck, dragged him across the bay, and slammed his back to the garage door with such force that I heard the air leave Hollow’s lungs. If Nathan hadn’t been holding him up by his neck, the Sack would have slumped to the floor. As it was, I thought Hollow was going to pee himself. His legs quivered. I didn’t hear everything Nathan said, but the gist of it was that Hollow should forget this place and everyone in it. If not, if we ever learned that the woman at the door had been harmed by him or any of his friends, his life would end in a very unpleasant way.

  I glanced at Zack. He’d jumped from his seat when Nathan moved and was standing behind it now, his pizza on the floor at his feet. Hall hadn’t left her chair, but she had shifted her balance, ready for flight—as startled as Zack, but more practiced at hiding it.

  Nathan dragged Hollow back to our circle and at last let go of his neck. Hollow sank into his chair, a rag doll of a man, sweat beading his brow. He was ready to talk.

  “One more time,” Nathan said, again sitting opposite the Sack. “Where is the porter?”

  “They’ll kill me.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  “I don’t have him. I helped take him, but I don’t have him.”

  “Where is he?”

  Hollow opened his mouth and Nathan held a warning finger to the Sack’s face. “Do not say you don’t know.”

  A war was waging in Hollow’s mind. Possible death at the hand of other Sacks for revealing the porter’s location or certain death at Nathan’s hands.

  “He’s in the house of a Resolute, about a mile from my house. In the basement.”

  “The Resolute’s name?”

  “Coiled.”

  “Who else is in the house?” Nathan slid forward. “Before you answer, let me remind you that we will hold you until he’s been safely released.”

  “A Resolute named Hadria and a Festal from out of town.”

  Nathan and I exchanged glances. Manifest Manifest, the Resolute who had murdered Lake, had indeed been made a Festal.

  “Who is there right now?”

  “Coiled and Hadria.”

  Hall slid one of her drives into Zack’s laptop and start typing.

  “What’s the address?” Nathan asked.

  Hollow swallowed hard and ran a tongue over his lips. “2040 Foothills Avenue,” he said, his head and shoulders drooping in a posture of defeat.

  “How close is that to Loomis?” Nathan asked me.

  I told him it was about ten blocks, and he looked back at Hollow. “We’re going to make a swap,” he told him. “You for our porter.”

  Hollow raised his head, his eyes wild with fear. “You can’t. They’ll know it was me who told you.”

  “Calm down, you’re not the first swap.”

  Hall slid her chair closer to Hollow, a move that ensured she had his quivering attention. “I seem to remember a Festal named Hollow who had an Alarm girlfriend by the name of Nectar,” she said. “You’re fond of her, aren’t you?”

  “Nectar? Really?” I couldn’t help myself.

  Hollow stared at me, slit-eyed and contemptuous, signaling to all that my presence to him was thoroughly unthreatening. “What of it?”

  “Do you care if Nectar stays well?” Hall asked.

  “You don’t get it. They’ll kill me, and they’ll toy with me first.”

  “Our porter’s being toyed with right now,” Nathan said. “An innocent man—while I’m wasting time talking to you.”

  “They’ll kill me, damn it!” Hollow shouted.

  Nathan spoke calmly, softly. “Then after the swap we’ll kill them all for you, all right?”

  Hollow paused. He chewed on his lip, considering. “Fine. If you promise to do it. Nectar too.”

  “God almighty.” Nathan wearily rubbed his forehead, stood, and glared down at Hollow with utter contempt. I wondered if he had rested or eaten since leaving us at the car rental place first thing this morning. And watching him terrorize Hollow, I wondered if there was something he wasn’t telling me about what the Fort Collins porter was suffering at this very moment. I hadn’t even asked the porter’s name. I didn’t want to know.

  He retrieved a phone from his suit jacket—I had no idea when he’d had time to pick up a burner—and handed it to Hollow. “Get them to release the porter at the emergency entrance to Poudre Valley Hospital.”

  “What if they don’t listen?”

  “They’re Resolutes and you’re a Festal. Tell them the porter must call me from the hospital at this number within twenty minutes. If not, every single one of you is dead.”

  Hollow made the call, his hands trembling as he punched in the number. After he handed the phone back to Nathan, he looked at him with pleading eyes. For the first time since becoming a hunter, a Sack evoked no pity in me.

  “You promised, right?” Hollow said.

  “I said so.”

  “You also promised to kill all of us if your porter doesn’t call you.”

  “That’s right.” Nathan sat again, directly in front of the Sack, making it plain with one look that he meant every word he’d said.

  I hoped Manifest Manifest was still waiting for Hollow at the party and hadn’t decided to return to the house where they held the porter. If he had, all of us were in trouble. That crazy Festal had drilled Steven La
ke’s teeth. He’d never let the porter go.

  “Should one of us go to the hospital?” Hall asked.

  “Not yet,” Nathan said.

  “What if your porter can’t talk on the phone?” Hollow said.

  “Then you’d better hope he can.” Nathan reached into the SUV for the plastic bags.

  “What now?” Hollow cried. “Why?”

  Nathan pointed at Hollow then to the backseat. “Get in.”

  His legs unsteady, Hollow rose and walked to the car. He used both hands to heave himself up to the seat then sat with his legs together, his hands clasped in his lap. His chest heaved as he breathed, and his eyes, flitting birdlike, watched every move we made.

  He whimpered when Nathan placed the bags over his head. “You promised.”

  “We’re going to wait for that phone call.”

  “You promised me.”

  “Not another word from you, do you understand?”

  The bags bobbed up and down.

  When Nathan motioned for me to get in the driver’s seat, Zack stepped forward. “I’ll go. I haven’t done anything since I got here.”

  “She knows the area,” Nathan said.

  “I don’t need someone to stay with me,” Hall said from her chair. “But you might need him.”

  Hollow sucked in his breath. “Why would you need him?”

  “What did I just tell you?” Nathan said.

  “Yes, yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Front seat,” Nathan said to Zack.

  Hollow’s bag head swung left and right, following the sound of Nathan’s footsteps on the concrete as he walked first to Hall, who showed him something on her laptop screen, then to the other side of the car. Nathan removed the suppressor for his HK from his glove compartment, dropped it into his coat pocket, and slid in next to Hollow.