Cursed Apprentice (Earth Survives Book 2)

by R. R. Roberts

  It would open doors, including, he hoped, Moses Zhang’s.

  After that, he’d have no more need to skim off the top of Chelsea’s pension, no need to file all his own paper work—he could afford to hire an assistant. He could get his own place and stop sleeping in the back of their start-up premises on a mattress. Con could too. They would be on their way.

  He set up the big screen, keyed in the black-market codes and left Chelsea to lose herself in the latest stupid rom-com. Never gonna happen, girl.

  He eased himself from the room and made his way into her bedroom, opened the safe—the code was ridiculous: Chelsea’s birthday—and removed the heavy gold pendant he’d had his eye on for months. About to close the door and spin the dial, he stopped, his gaze catching on her wedding ring set. She never wore it anymore. It only made her cry she’d told him, repeatedly. If he took it, it meant this would be his last visit.

  He glanced back toward the hallway. Chelsea would notice it was gone. She wasn’t that out of it. But Jump Start was due to explode on the market, blowing early investors into millionaires in a matter of weeks, not years. He glanced back at the door, heard Chelsea’s rough laughter at something on the big screen and made his choice.

  He plucked the rings from their velvet holder and dropped them into his pocket.

  He deserved it—payment for the aggravation of looking after a drunk. It had taken him two months to wrestle all her hoarded crap from her grasping hands, another two convincing her of the wisdom of stripping out the filthy carpets and replacing them with easy to clean bamboo floors. As this was going on, he’d arranged for all her bills to be paid automatically and for a team to come into her house to do a deep clean, then come twice a week thereafter to keep it that way and her healthy. He’d bought her food, and booze and delivered it to her personally for a year now and all she saw was an errand boy. It was only lately her view of him had changed, not to one of gratitude for saving herself from herself, but apparently seeing his gestures as having potential romantic motivations. Ugh.

  He couldn’t take it anymore. Wren and Charles were never coming back, it was obvious. That route to resurrecting the future was dead in the water. Zhang had somehow managed to discredit Charles Wood, and to breakup his happy home. Wood had no currency, no presence in the scientific community; he was nowhere in sight. There was no going back—not now. Mike needed a new plan; a plan to focus solely on Zhang. That was where his attention needed to be.

  He swung the wall safe door closed, spun the dial, rehung the picture that shielded it from view and returned to the living room. The movie was still running, the hero chasing after the heroine in a rickshaw he’d somehow obtained, but the laughing Chelsea had passed out. She lay on the couch, her empty glass still in her hand. Her face was relaxed, child-like. Watching her, his resentment faded. She really was a victim in all this, wasn’t she?

  He pulled out his phone. There was no need for him to keep dropping by anymore, not now. First, he called up the corner deli and then the local liquor store, arranging for each to deliver to Chelsea’s condo twice a week, the usual orders, giving them her credit card number for payment. The card was paid out every month automatically at her bank. Sadly, Chelsea had plenty of money—it was easily arranged. This would complete the background mechanism he’d setup to take care of her. Now he could walk away without guilt.

  He moved closer and looked down at her still face, so innocent in sleep and knew he was fooling himself—there would be guilt. She’d been happy once. She’d been a wife and a mother once. What had Zhang done to tear apart this woman’s life?

  He reached into his pocket for the pendant and slipped the gold chain awkwardly past her fuzzy blonde hair and settled the pendant at her throat, taking a moment to stroke its sleek surface, regretful at giving it up, but knowing this was the right thing to do. Still sleeping, Chelsea shifted to her side and the pendant fell from sight. She belched, grimaced, then buried her face into the cushions with a boozy sigh.

  He watched her for another moment, then slipped out of the condo. The rings? The rings he would keep.

  MAKING HIS WAY THROUGH TOWN, hammering fresh reward pictures of Coru on lamp posts with a heavy-duty construction stapler, Mike figured he’d end up down at Girls, Girls, Girls around the time Cherry knocked off for the night. Yes, he was just going through the motions, but he wasn’t ready to give up on his big brother just yet. There was practically zero chance at this point of Coru turning up, a year after they’d jumped through the Time Bore together. But, Mike kept up the search. He’d promised himself a year and that year hadn’t ended yet. The fifty grand he’d promised as a reward? Ha! That wasn’t happening—not with Jump Start going public in a week. Every dime he and Con had, and Cherry if he could persuade her, was going into Jump Start.

  He’d drop in on Cherry and talk her into chips and gravy at Denny’s. She loved chips and gravy. Lucky for Cherry, chips and gravy didn’t love her, allowing her to indulge without adding onto her sleek, feminine figure. Cherry’s father had been Chinese, her mother a Swede. She was tall like her mother, had her father’s black hair and almond eyes, though Cherry’s eyes were blue like her mother’s and her skin had a soft, golden hue. She was quite literally the most exotic, beautiful woman Mike had ever seen. Her body was her meal ticket and she took very good care of it. And her girls.

  Cherry had an in with the cops. What Cherry knew she wouldn’t tell Mike, but it was enough to protect her and her six girls—they were all fireproof as far as the local cops were concerned. Cherry didn’t turn tricks herself, but never looked down her nose at those who did. Everyone had a hard luck story, and as far as Cherry was concerned, deserved to be free to work their way out of it, on their back if they needed to, without the cops hassling them as they did. She had pull in this town. How she’d gotten it, she wasn’t saying, but that fact remained. Cherry used her influence sparingly, modestly, protecting her girls and herself at Girls, Girls, Girls.

  As far as Mike knew.

  Cherry was no snob, but she wasn’t the chatty type, either.

  He wished she’d take him more seriously, less like a little brother. She only had five years on him, but she viewed them as closer to twenty years in life experience. His feelings about Cherry were very unbrotherly at this point, but if she knew how he felt about her, there would be no more chips and gravy dates—his word for their late-night meals, not hers—down at Denny’s, even if Mike was guiding her investments from a solid nest egg to a small fortune. Cherry was very clear on this point—she liked being single. He never argued the point.

  Cherry stripped, made a ton of cash, then returned to her modest one-bedroom walk-up, where she played the market just as Mike advised, worked out on her treadmill and elliptical machines, and read romance novels by the bale, completely focused on breaking free of Girls, Girls, Girls as early as next year. With his insights into these historic markets, Mike knew she would.

  Making his way to the dark back entrance, the way barely visible from a distant street light that revealed a pale pebbled path down the alleyway, Mike stopped at hearing voices raised in argument. Geez. What now? Another admirer waiting at the stage door with ideas about Cherry? Running his fingertips along the worn brick building, he hastened to the back corner, and took a quick peek. Here a bare lightbulb over the back entrance shone a washed-out circle of light over the two cars parked behind the club.

  Yup—it was Cherry, backed up against her car by a burly no-neck guy. Why did she even come out here without one of the bouncers seeing her safely to her car? It was policy. That new guy, Trevor something, wasn’t doing his job, obviously. Not your brightest bulb in the box.

  Mike stepped out from the shadows and sauntered on over, swinging his heavy staple hammer casually as he went. “Hey buddy. What’s up with you handling my girl?” He did a bit of working out himself these days and could take this guy.

  The guy glanced at him and grunted his dismissal. “Piss off, kid.”

  Cl
oser now, Mike could see Cherry’s duffle coat was open, and the soft pink sweatshirt she wore home every night was torn at the neck, leaving angry red marks across her throat and collar bone.

  He grabbed the guy by the arm and hauled him back. The guy came away easily—too easily—pulling back one fist and plowing it into Mike’s stomach, with a second fist to his jaw, dropping him like a stone to the cobbled pavement. Stars exploded in Mike’s head—pop, pop, pop!

  Cherry cried, “Stop! He’s just a kid, for God's sake, Bruce! Give it a rest!”

  The stars faded, and Mike’s brain tipped on the edge of consciousness, balanced over darkness, waiting to see which way he’d fall. A stray thought lingered—Cherry knew this loser?

  Pain rushed back, slamming him to the cold wet stones pressed against his face—no passing out happening here.

  Fighting to draw breath back into his empty lungs, his vision swimming in and out, Mike pushed weakly with one foot, rolled onto his back and gazed blearily up at Bruce who had turned his attention back to Cherry, the “Kid” already forgotten, like an annoying fly slapped away. Pressing her hard against the car, Bruce pushed his hands up under Cherry’s sweatshirt, roaming around under the fabric. Cherry cried out, beating at his massive shoulders with her fists.

  The guy mumbled, “Come on baby, it’s been a while and Daddy’s hungry for some lovin’.”

  Mike struggled to sit up, failed and fell back to the ground. Useless; he was freaking useless.

  Cherry bucked under Bruce, but it made no difference. The man was built like a bull.

  Bruce chuckled, “You’re a feisty one.” He watched her face as he squeezed her tender flesh, watching for her reaction with anticipation.

  Full-out sobbing now, Cherry tried to twist away, giving him the struggle he wanted.

  “I like it!” he moaned, grinding against her, the sound of their bodies thudding against the car in an erratic beat that turned Mike’s stomach. Bruce’s eyes dropped to half-shut. She was suddenly silent, the fight deserting her, the only sound that of her breath racing in and out of her lungs.

  “Better,” Bruce muttered, his face a frozen mask of concentration. “Chief Chesney ain’t got no sway over ol’ Bruce, now does he? You can run, but you can’t hide. Ain’t that right?”

  Mike rose onto his hands and knees, shaking, looked around for a weapon. Saw his staple hammer. Picked it up.

  Dragging first one foot flat to the cobbles, willing himself to rise. His legs trembling under him. He staggered, caught himself, blinked his wavering vision clear, then lifted the heavy stapler and swung with all his strength, bringing it down on the back of Bruce’s fat, no-neck head.

  Crimson blood and white bone and pasty, gray brain sprayed across Cherry, across her pale blue car, all over Mike, all over the shiny wet pavement. Bruce dropped, a barely heard huff of sound as his body tumbled to the ground. Mike wavered on his feet, the stapler held fast in his hand and slowly took in what he had just done, a macabre shower of death, visited upon every available surface.

  He raised his eyes to Cherry. Swallowing back bile and swaying before her he murmured. “You… you all right?”

  Her eyes were wide, horror printed across her white face, her mascara black and running from her eyes. “Oh, my God! Mike! You just killed Bruce Trenholme!”

  He frowned and gazed down at the body, noting the river of blood making its way from Bruce Trenholme’s caved in head and disappearing into a very convenient two-foot square grill leading to underground water drainage. Vancouver was a rainy city and the water had to go somewhere. Huh. If you were set on killing a man, this would be the place, wouldn’t it? a curiously calm voice in his head remarked.

  He looked up at Cherry again. “Go back inside and get the shower curtain from your dressing room. You can replace it tomorrow—none the wiser. We’ll dump the body—.”

  “Are you kidding me!” Cherry demanded, yanking off her coat and using it to wipe blood and brain from her face, her entire body vibrating, shuddering in revulsion.

  Mike said, “I have no papers. Not real ones. I don’t exist. I can’t be here.”

  She flung the coat away from her, hissing, “Who cares? Nobody cares! You killed Bruce Trenholme is what matters here! You—we—won’t live to see tomorrow. We have to run. We have to get as far away from this place as humanly possible.” She wrapped her arms around herself, closed her eyes and moaned, rocking in place. “Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Mike glanced around, taking in the scene, seeing what others would see when they arrived, and they would come, they would see what had happened here. “You could call up Chief Chesney. Explain. It was self-defence.”

  “The back of his head is gone, Mike. Gone. My story will be I clocked him as he ran away from me?” She opened her eyes and leveled him a flat stare. “Chief Chesney won’t touch this. The Commissioner won’t even touch this.”

  “You…you have the Commissioner on the string too?” Mike blurted, his voice squeaking, fear squeezing his entrails, his bowels turning to water. What had he done? Who was this guy?

  She covered her face and collapsed against her car. Mike’s gaze darted around once again, taking in the scene—empty alley way, two cars, Cherry’s and another, a non-descript sedan of questionable color, parked with all four tires flat on the ground, obviously stolen and abandoned, many months ago. One dumpster, one exit in and out, the door back into Girls, Girls, Girls, now closed until tomorrow at eleven a.m. when the early regulars wandered in for the matinee.

  His eyes snapped back to a hose coiled on the ground by the entranceway, energy surging through him. The bouncer sprayed down the alleyway a couple of times a week to clean up the stink.

  He darted to the hose, turned the faucet. His heart jumped in his chest when water gurgled from the hose, an escape plan exploding inside his head, fully formed. He turned the water on full force, the open end of the hose jerking from side to side as it spewed water. He captured the end and ran it back to where Trenholme lay swimming in his own blood, which was now lazily making its way down the nearby drain, though not nearly fast enough to disappear before it congealed all around him, framing his dead body as only a pool of blood can.

  “If you want to keep your car, go get the shower curtain and we’ll wrap him up in it. If you don’t care about your car, we’ll burn it after. Your call.”

  Cherry dropped her hands and stared at him, her face white with shock. “What are you thinking?”

  “This guy’s a big deal, right? A bad dude—connected, right?”

  “R-right. He’s a fixer. He’s Danny Harrelson’s right-hand man.”

  The hose shook in Mike’s grip. Danny Harrelson! “Forget the shower curtain. We’re burning your car.” He shoved the hose into her hand. “Here, you clean up. I’ll get him into the trunk. Give me your keys.”

  She stood like a statue, water splashing blood all around her, spreading rather than rinsing away the evidence. “You think they won’t know there was a body in the car after it burns? The cops aren’t that stupid.”

  “The body won’t be there. We just need to move it. We burn the car separate. Cars are always being stolen, then burned. For kicks. One has nothing to do with the other.” When she made no move to direct the flow of water and blood, he seized her hand and directed the blood to the drain. “Do it like this.” She was staring down at Trenholme now. “Cherry. We have maybe a couple of hours before light to get this right.”

  She blinked, then shifted her gaze to his face.

  He softened his tone. “Where are your keys?”

  She glanced down at herself, then looked around, finding her coat lying in the shadows. She swallowed and croaked, “In my coat pocket.”

  “I’ll move him, you clean up. Every drop, every scrap, Cherry.”

  She swallowed again, swaying on her feet, her expression blank.

  “Don’t putz out on me now. We can do this. You don’t have to lose your life over this guy. We just have to be smart. And fast. I kn
ow where we can get rid of the body where no one will find him.”

  She looked at him again, and this time there seemed to be more Cherry in her eyes, more strength. She was getting this. She nodded, blinking her eyes clear, squaring her shoulders. “Okay. Okay.” She turned her attention to the hose, the stream of water and the crimson lake that was now spread all around them, surrounding their feet and creeping larger and larger into the pale lighted circle over the Girls, Girls, Girls back entrance door. She nodded more decisively. “Okay.”

  Mike grabbed Cherry’s coat, fumbled for the keys then set to work moving the hulking Bruce Trenholme. Geez. The guy was a whale; Cherry’s trunk was too small. Mike ended up stuffing Bruce across the backseat, and it wasn’t a stealthy transition. If anyone was around, they’d have heard everything—grunting and cursing, the car rocking, water splashing. Gurgling echoed down the pipe. No—there was nothing stealthy about two desperate people covering a murder out in plain sight. Mike had to satisfy himself with being quick. With getting away.

  And the stink. No one told you about the smell the human body produced after death.

  The car would have to be burned for sure. Blood, hair, fibers—all that good forensic stuff now laid out aplenty in Cherry’s car. Crime scene 101, right here.

  By the time he was done with Bruce, Mike was gasping like he’d run a marathon and no longer even trying to stay quiet. It was not possible. He leaned weakly against Cherry’s car, swimming in sweat and smears of Trenholme’s blood. But Cherry did have the alleyway rinsed clean of all the evidence. The bigger bone pieces she’d picked up and tossed into the dumpster, due to be emptied tomorrow. All the rest went down the drain.