Call Me Wicked

by Jamie Sobrato

  “So you hooked up with Lauren, eh?”

  “Don’t want to kiss and tell, you know,” Carson said, embarrassed at the stiffness in his own voice.

  It didn’t sound like something he’d say. Until recently, he’d been the king of kissing and telling Griffin the Reader’s Digest version of his sexual exploits.

  “Dude, I get it. You’re falling hard for her. We pretty much already knew that.”

  “I didn’t call to talk chicks, honestly. I was actually hoping to talk shop.”

  “What’s up at good old Bronson and Wade, anyway?”

  “Can’t say we’re doing all that great without you and Macy. You can rest assured you were valuable members of the company.”

  “Give me a break. There were probably five hundred equally talented people lined up to take my job.”

  Carson sighed. “No kidding. I had to interview them all.”

  “I know, I know. Sorry to have made your job more difficult, man.”

  “Hey, I should be glad you’re gone, right? It means I’m getting the fat paycheck now instead of you.” He was trying to sound cheery, but instead, his voice came out flat.

  “What’s really going on?” Griffin said.

  Carson toyed with a pen on his desk, spinning it with his fingers, attempting to ignore the sick feeling in his gut. But finally, he knew he couldn’t keep his worry inside any longer. He’d have to spill it and risk sounding like an idiot.

  “Do you ever feel like…um…we’re selling our souls in this business?”

  He braced himself for a verbal assault, but instead Griffin laughed. “We work in advertising. Of course we’re selling our souls. Isn’t that a given?”

  “How do you live with it? Doesn’t it ever start to feel shitty?”

  “I don’t know, man. I guess it’s easier for you to feel unsatisfied when you’ve got your trust fund to fall back on.”

  “Sorry, dude. It wasn’t a fair question.”

  “I guess I look at it as a way to earn a paycheck. And I’m always up for a creative challenge.”

  “And you don’t mind bending over and taking it in the ass from clients every day,” Carson said, then immediately regretted insulting his best friend yet again.

  But again, Griffin surprised him by laughing. “Guess not. I mean, sure, it gets to me sometimes. But I don’t take the job too seriously. It’s not my whole life or anything.”

  Of course it wasn’t, because Griffin had started his own company, putting himself in a situation where he got to make all the decisions and pick and choose clients. And he had Macy, too, who was probably a hell of a lot more fulfilling than any job.

  Carson had only begun to get a taste of what it was like to have something besides work define his existence. And he wanted a bigger taste. He wanted to pull up to the table and have a five-course meal that didn’t include the advertising world.

  “I’m just getting this feeling that I’m living the wrong life or something.”

  “Give it some time, man. It takes a few days to get back in the workaday groove.”

  “No, it’s bigger than that. I can’t be an advertising whore and ever really be happy with my life.”

  “So what, you’re going to become a trust fund hippie? Turn on, tune in and drop out of your day job?”

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t know.”

  “This is going to sound gay, but remember that time we went on that adventure tour of Costa Rica? We were hiking through the jungle and river rafting and diving off cliffs and shit, and right in the middle of it, I looked at you and said I could hardly recognize you?”

  “Yeah, I remember.” It had been one of the happiest times in his life, living nearly free of the civilized world, away from all the trappings and the success and the expectations. Away from everything that weighed him down in life.

  “That’s what this conversation is reminding me of. I haven’t seen that side of you in a long time.”

  “I guess I left it in Costa Rica.”

  “You seemed more like…yourself then. More like a guy at rest in his own skin, not trying to put on an act for anyone.”

  “I seem like I’m putting on an act?” Carson said, glancing out the door of his office and hoping no one was lurking nearby eavesdropping on this ridiculously heartfelt conversation. Carson didn’t do heartfelt on the job, or anywhere outside of bed.

  “Not exactly. I think it’s only something I notice because I’ve seen that other side of you. I’ve seen the wild, untamed Carson.”

  “Jungle Boogie Carson?”

  “Yeah, man. I think maybe you belong in the jungle, and not the urban one, if you know what I mean.”

  “Maybe I am putting on an act. Or I have been, all these years. That’s what scares me most. I started believing my own act.”

  “It’s a good act. I think everyone believes you’re the slick, easygoing, good-time guy you make yourself out to be.”

  “I’m thinking about quitting my job,” Carson blurted out, surprised to hear the words spoken aloud himself.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t say I’d blame you for a second, since I did it myself.”

  “I just don’t know what the hell I want to do.”

  “At the risk of sounding like a motivational speaker, sometimes you have to make the leap, and then the answer presents itself.”

  Carson felt a wisecrack on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back. Maybe Griffin was right. Maybe he just needed to leap, without knowing what was at the bottom of the cliff. He thought of Lauren and her quest to live by her own rules, and he realized she’d inspired him. She’d made him want to create some rules of his own.

  “You went away for a week and came back sounding like a different person,” Griffin said. “What the hell happened to you on that trip, anyway?”

  Carson stopped spinning the pen and noticed the Web site advertised on the side of it. Yet another stinking advertisement. His whole life had become messages designed to sell things, designed to make someone, somewhere, more money, and he was goddamn sick of it. He wasn’t sure he could take another day of corporate hell.

  He flicked the pen off his desk, and it went sailing across the room, hit the wall and fell to the floor.

  “Someday I’ll tell you everything,” Carson said. “But for now I’ve gotta go. Thanks for listening to me whine,” he said distractedly and hung up the phone.

  He continued to stare at the pen, and he knew. Whatever his future held, it wasn’t here. It wasn’t in this slick, shiny office at Bronson and Wade. And it wasn’t in the slick, shiny world of advertising, either. His wild side was calling to him, and he had to follow that voice, wherever it led.

  He turned back to his computer, opened up a blank e-mail message, and began typing his resignation letter.

  13

  LARS DID NOT ENJOY torturing mortals. Rarely did his work call for him to harm one of his own race, and when it did, he hated every moment of it. He was not a cruel man by nature. His work was to protect humanity, not to harm it, and he would have avoided doing so if he could.

  But there were occasions such as this, when the mortal world and the supernatural world mixed in an unnatural way, forcing him to lie in wait as he did now. Next to him, Noam was breathing noisily.

  “Could you shut the hell up for five minutes? I’m getting damn sick of listening to your nose whistle.”

  “Screw you,” he said in his native Czech. “I’ve got allergies.”

  “He should be here any minute now.”

  “Bastard deserves to die for making it with the witch I want to do.”

  “We’re not going to kill him yet. We’re going to get the information we need, and then kill him.”

  “So what’s the plan? You grab him and I inject him with the drug?”

  “Yeah. You’d better get the needle ready,” Lars said, handing Noam the medical bag they kept behind the driver’s seat.

  “I’ve never killed a mortal. Have you?”

  Lars n
odded. “Once. It’s an unfortunate part of the job. You’ll come to accept it in time,” he said to the younger man, who’d only been his apprentice for six months now.

  “What if we capture this guy and he won’t talk no matter what? We kill him anyway?”

  “Sadly, we’ll have no choice.”

  “Maybe we can use him as bait to lure the witch into our hands.”

  Lars nodded. “It’s possible. That’s a last resort, though. Too many uncontrollable variables.”

  Outside, it had grown completely dark now, which worked to their advantage. They would have to work quickly, and they would have to be ready for any unforeseen circumstance. San Francisco was not the teeming den of witches that L.A. was, but the city had its share.

  With any luck, in a matter of days, it would have one less for good.

  Noam was glaring out the front window of the van. At nineteen, he was already becoming a decent witch hunter, but he had a lot to learn. Lars could remember himself at that age, twenty years ago, and he remembered his unquenchable idealism, his thirst to free the world of the unnatural balance the witches created.

  “My father was killed by a witch,” Noam said, and Lars was surprised to hear it. The kid rarely talked about himself. “Killed in the line of duty.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. We all have someone we love who was lost to them.”

  “I swore I’d avenge his life. But if I’m killing another human, that’s not exactly vengeance, is it?”

  “You have to look at the big picture. This Carson McCullen is one step along the path to eradicating the witches. Don’t get bogged down in the details.”

  “Yeah,” the kid said. “I guess you’re right.”

  A movement from the sidewalk up ahead caught Lars’s eye. “Hey, that’s him,” he said, nodding at the man coming toward them. “That’s the one we saw on the camera from the witch’s apartment.”

  Noam readied the needle, and the two men exited the van silently. They headed toward the witch’s consort, the cool night air enveloping them. Fog was pouring in from the ocean to the west, providing the street and sidewalk with a misty diffusion that aided their plans.

  In a matter of seconds, they were upon the man, and he eyed them warily as they parted as if to let him pass between them. But in a lightning-fast movement, Noam had inserted the drug into the man’s arm, and Lars caught him as he crumpled to the ground. The two men supported Carson’s weight as they walked with his limp body back to the van, and then they dropped his body in the back. The two men climbed in behind him and closed the doors.

  A few minutes later, they had him bound with rope in case he gained consciousness before the ride to The Order’s Northern California operation center was complete. They were one step closer to capturing Lauren Parish.

  A witch foolish enough to go on CNN for her own career glory would be foolish enough to tell them everything they needed to know to take down the entire clan. Lars was sure of it. He’d known, ever since seeing her on the news, that she alone was the key to The Order’s success. She was too bold, too proud, not careful like the cowardly elders.

  Lauren Parish would be the beginning of the end of the Beauville Clan. But his cock got hard in his pants when he thought of the witch. She was beautiful, even more so than the other female witches he’d seen. She aroused him in a way that he hated. It was impure, unnatural. It was out of balance with nature to desire a witch the way he desired her.

  He was not proud of his urge. But as he watched the San Francisco streets pass by while Noam drove, he could think only of taking the witch. He would succumb to his desire if he had half a chance. No harm would come of it, if he was going to kill her anyway.

  Surely, one good screw would cure him. And she would hate it, so it would be a form of torture, as well. He could use rape to gain the information he needed.

  His erection didn’t settle down. Instead, he could feel his cock leaking seminal fluid in his underpants as he thought of taking the witch. He detested that she could have such an effect on him. He would punish her dearly for that.

  “WHAT DO YOU KNOW about Lauren Parish,” the man demanded.

  Carson blinked at the harsh light, and he felt something warm on his forehead, oozing into his eye. He tried to move his hand to wipe at his eye, but he found that both hands were tied behind his back. He tugged harder, and the rope that bound his wrists cut into his skin.

  “Who?” he asked, trying to buy himself a little time.

  “Don’t play games with me.”

  Carson could not see the man clearly with the bright light so close to his face. He could only see the dark form of the man on the other side of the light, his face covered by a black ski mask. The man lifted his arm, and then Carson felt the impact of something hard against the side of his head.

  He reeled to the side, then was snapped back into place by the ropes that held him in the chair.

  “What do you know?”

  Carson said nothing. His mind raced to recall his most recent memory before awakening in this chair, in this room, with this man.

  He remembered walking along the sidewalk toward his apartment after having gotten off the Muni after work, his head buzzing with the fact that he’d just resigned from his job. He remembered it being dark, and cold. And then, nothing.

  They must have been lying in wait for him. And judging by the throbbing in the back of his arm, like a bee sting, they must have injected him with some kind of drug.

  He heard movement from the direction of the man behind the light, and then he felt a stinging slap in the face. Then another. And another.

  Carson inhaled sharply at the pain, and he tried to think of whatever tips he’d read in the survival handbook he’d gotten from his brother for Christmas a few years ago. What had the damn thing said about how to survive being tied up and bitch-slapped for information?

  Or worse.

  The slapping stopped, and Carson had to admit to himself that it was probably the easy part. Something worse had to be coming soon for his enjoyment, or else they wouldn’t have needed to tie him up so tightly.

  “Let me tell you how this will work,” the man said, and Carson noticed for the first time his accent, which sounded Slavic, or maybe German, but he hadn’t spent enough time in Europe to know for sure.

  “How what will work?”

  “You give us the information we need, and we will not kill you.”

  “And if I don’t have the information you need?”

  “We kill you.”

  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” Carson said, pissed at himself for not having read that damn survival guide more closely—for not having memorized it from cover to cover.

  “I’m not stupid, Carson McCullen. I know who you are, and I know your relationship to Lauren Parish.”

  Carson went silent, admitting nothing. He wasn’t sure if it would do him any more good to lie and continue denying he even knew Lauren. Or if it was better to play dumb and act as though he didn’t know she was a witch.

  “Is she worth losing your life over?” the man asked.

  Carson concentrated on memorizing everything he could about his captor. The man’s gray eye color, the pale skin tone visible through the openings in the ski mask, his wiry build, his black clothes.

  “No,” he said finally. “She isn’t. I barely know her.”

  And then he remembered something he’d heard about what soldiers were trained to do when captured by enemy troops and questioned. They were told to give only their name, rank and serial number.

  Did this occasion count as a capture by enemy troops? Did the rules of war apply here? Were the goals of a U.S. soldier held hostage even remotely similar to his goal in this situation, whatever this situation was?

  He didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want to give away any information about Lauren.

  “Do you always screw women you barely know?” the man said as he sat down at the table across from Carson.

  “Occasionally.”r />
  Carson thought then of his profession, what he got paid to do for a living in the advertising world. He had to sell a bill of goods to this guy. In short, lie to him. He might not have been a soldier, but he’d been well trained as an ad man.

  Which, oddly, probably made him more ruthless than any soldier.

  “I should tell you, we know how to kill you and dispose of your body without getting caught,” the man said.

  “Great. Thanks for letting me know,” Carson said wryly, realizing too late that this probably wasn’t the time for sarcasm.

  And sure enough, the comment earned him another sharp slap. He winced at the stinging that lingered in the side of his face, complemented now by an aching eye.

  “These little slaps will start to feel like a welcome respite from what will come after them. Shall I tell you what else will happen?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “I have a dog,” the man said. “He is crazy for the taste of blood. I cut you anywhere, and he will come and attack.”

  Sounded like loads of fun, though Carson thought it wise to keep the sarcastic comment to himself this time.

  “I will ensure the blood is coming from your groin, so he will attack there. If you are unlucky, he will tear your testicles right off. Would you like that?”

  Did this guy ever get a yes to that question?

  “No thanks. I’d like to pass on that one.”

  “So then you will cooperate.”

  Carson nodded, trying his best to look obedient, or however it was a cowed captor was supposed to look.

  This was his chance, finally, to prove to himself he really could rise to any challenge. He’d always longed for one of these defining moments, where he could rise above privilege and luck and prove that he was a man to be reckoned with. He wanted to prove he had courage, that he could think on his feet and be counted upon in a crisis.