Carpet Diem

  Bob looked directly at Simon. “He's a good man.”

  Simon felt tears welling. He handed over the cigar, his hand shaking with adrenaline and frustration.

  “Fuck you,” he growled, staring at the Spaniard.

  “I get that a lot,” Calderon smiled and pushed Bob back into a seat. “I have a proposal for you, old friend.”

  Bob held a protective hand to his singed cheek.

  “Sit,” Calderon commanded Simon. He did.

  “I wonder,” Calderon said to Bob, “will he roll over too?”

  Simon’s face flushed. Of all the people in the world he had ever hated, this bastard was now top of the list.

  Calderon moved back to the dinner table where Amelia and Cassandra still sat, motionless. Simon thought he saw Cassandra’s eyes move.

  Wait; Priest!

  He could get them out of this. Simon just had to wake him up.

  Ha. “Just.” He was on the other side of the house, and under a sleeping spell.

  If Harriet was awake, she’d know what to do.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  “So, my friend, here is my offer,” said Calderon. “You choose which of these ladies I kill first.”

  “No!” Simon protested. Bob remained silent.

  “I don’t give a damn,” the giant said, calmly. “They live here. They’re nothing to do with us. In fact,” he sat back in the chair, seeming to grow in confidence, “go ahead. Though when Priest finds out you broke into his home and killed his wife and daughter, I wouldn’t want to be you.”

  Calderon paused. For the first time, Simon thought, he looked genuinely ruffled.

  “Perhaps you have a point. There is no need to make life more complicated than necessary.”

  He moved to the couch, next to Harriet.

  “Let’s start again. I kill her or I kill him,” he waved the knife at Simon.

  “That would be a shame,” said Bob. “Awake and sober, she’d eat you for breakfast.”

  “De veras?” Calderon looked down at Harriet curiously. “Sadly, she is indisposed.” He looked up again at Bob. “So, which is it to be?”

  “I’m not going to choose, you Spanish prick.”

  Calderon charged across the floor and held the knife to Bob's face.

  “Catalan prick, Robert,” he hissed.

  Bob didn't flinch. “What do you really want?”

  “I think you know that,” he answered, licking the flat of the knife.

  Bob closed his eyes.

  “Fine. Take me. Leave everyone else. That’s the deal.”

  “That’s the deal? That’s the deal?” Calderon’s mask slipped dramatically as he stepped back towards the women. “I make the deals, you piece of shit!”

  “Actually, no, you don’t.” Bob produced a pen from somewhere and lifted it to his temple. “I think you want me alive, because killing me isn’t going to be enough for you. You don’t want a quick murder; you want to inflict pain. Suffering. Right?”

  Calderon was beginning to sweat.

  “So?”

  “So, here’s the deal. I come with you, without a fight, and you leave everyone else alone. Or, I shove this pen in my brain and we see if I survive.”

  “You probably will, you know,” Calderon drawled.

  “Maybe. But if I’m a vegetable, how’s that going to work for you?”

  Calderon was simmering.

  “I don’t believe you will do it.”

  “My alternative is years being tortured by you again. You honestly don’t think I’d do it?”

  They stared at each other. Simon was acutely conscious of his own breathing.

  Wait. What was that? Cassandra had moved; he was sure this time. If he could get her free, maybe…

  “And you would choose to come with me, to protect your friends?”

  Bob stared directly back at Calderon, as if he was trying to burn through him with his eyes.

  “Yes. I would,” Bob finally answered.

  The Catalan waved the knife with a flourish, growing in confidence again. “It makes me wonder, you know, would it be worse for you if I just killed them?”

  He dangled the knife casually towards Harriet’s still sleeping body.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Simon saw movement again. Was it Cassandra? Or maybe he was mistaken all along. Maybe it was Amelia. Maybe she’d come round and was playing possum, waiting to catch Calderon off guard. He needed to get the psycho near them. One of them was moving.

  “So you’re afraid of Priest?” he asked, hoping like hell that the next sentence would come to him when he needed it.

  Bob and Calderon both snapped their heads to look at him darkly.

  “I am afraid of nobody, mi amigo.” There was an irritated edge in Calderon's voice. “I simply choose not to create … issues, where none exist.”

  “And you assume Bob gave you the right information, do you? About who everyone is?” Simon really wasn't sure where this was going but it was, at least, going.

  “I beg your pardon?” Calderon stepped toward Simon.

  “Simon, what are you doing?” Bob asked, with a significant edge of panic in his voice.

  “Yes, Simon, what are you doing?”

  “Maybe that’s Priest’s daughter on the couch. Or his wife. How would you know?” Simon asked.

  Calderon smiled and moved towards the other women.

  “This,” he said, gesturing at Cassandra with his knife, “is Cassandra. Married to both Priest and your friend Bob’s employer. Did I tell you, by the way, that it was he who told me where to find you?”

  Bob’s eyes widened.

  “That’s a lie!” Simon answered instinctively. “Faunt wouldn’t do that.”

  “You know the old goat? Interesting.”

  “So?” Simon challenged him. He was on the back foot, now.

  “Well, let me tell you: I had his teleporter – the punk? Your friend gave me Bob so that I would kill her quickly. Believe me now?”

  Simon was standing before he had decided what to do. Bob grabbed his arm.

  “No,” the giant whispered.

  “I will kill you,” Simon said, in a voice he'd never heard before. “One day, I will kill you.”

  Calderon smiled again in return, his white teeth glinting. Simon sat - slowly.

  “And this,” Calderon continued, as if he had just paused for a breath, must be his daughter, who is afflicted with a condition that causes her to - I believe they call it - 'stop'. Yes?”

  Now was the time, he turned his back on the table to walk to Harriet. Simon steeled himself to act as soon as whichever of them was free moved. He tensed his muscles. If he could get to the knife...

  … Nothing.

  Both women remained frozen in place. Surely, he hadn’t imagined it? He’d definitely seen someone move.

  “That, mis amigos, makes this young lady a nobody, who is simply sleeping off last night’s excesses, no?”

  “So, are we going or not?” Bob asked, urgently.

  Calderon looked at Simon like a cow at a cattle auction.

  “We are,” he answered. “I think I will enjoy your suffering more if I am there to inflict it daily. You understand?”

  Bob stood and walked to Calderon, hand held open in front of him with the pen.

  “If you change your mind, if you harm anyone here, I’ll find a different way to do it,” he said, flatly.

  “Robert, I think you have new steel I have not seen before. I think this will be even more fun than I imagined.”

  He turned Bob around and began to walk him to the door.

  Simon trembled with rage and fear. He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. How would he live with himself? Every fibre of his being was telling him to stand - to do something; anything. He felt a chill on the back of his neck and imagined a voice in his ear, whispering, “Stop him. Now.”

  “Stop!” he shouted, standing and putting himself between the men and the door. “If you want him, you’re going to have
to kill me first.”

  “Simon, no.” Bob pleaded.

  “I can’t, Bob. I can’t,” he answered, tears running down his face.

  “What is a man to do?” Calderon mused, as if he were contemplating a choice of partner to take home after the last dance. “Perhaps I shall take you both? If I must, I must, I suppose.”

  He pushed Bob sideways to the floor and moved towards Simon, who steeled himself. He grabbed the lamp again and raised it like a bat, ready to swing.

  Calderon slowed a moment, grinned lasciviously, raised his knife, stepped forward...

  …and collapsed, face first, onto the floor.

  Nobody moved.

  Except Calderon, whose arms inexplicably bent themselves behind his back as his face pressed itself harder into the floor.

  “Quedemonios?” the rattled psychopath grumbled into the floor.

  Bob regained his feet and looked down at his erstwhile captor. He and Simon exchanged looks of utter confusion. The giant finally took the lead.

  “Hit him!” he ordered Simon, urgently.

  Needing little encouragement, Simon raised the lamp and stepped forward, ready to bring it down on Calderon’s head.

  “Wait!”

  The voice came from near Calderon, but it was clearly not his. It did sound familiar, though.

  Simon duly stopped – as much out of surprise as obedience. A hazy figure appeared, kneeling on Calderon's back, with one hand held up in defence against Simon's lamp. His infectious grin slowly came into focus.

  “Prisoner?” Bob asked, astonished. “You were … invisible?”

  “Ain't that a thing?” their rescuer replied, smiling. “I did not know I could do that.”

  “Yomatariatu!” shrieked Calderon, struggling to move.

  Bob kicked him in the face. Hard. Blood sprayed across the floor.

  “Shut up, you sick bastard or I'll drop you in another bridge,” the giant growled, before bursting into nervous laughter.

  Despite himself, Simon began to laugh as well - a quiet, uneasy, laugh at something that wasn’t really very funny.

  “I have a message for you, sir,” Prisoner said to Calderon. “Maya says - and please excuse the language, ladies - ‘Fuck you, too.’”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “This is an outrage!” Calderon screamed from the chair they had tied him to - for the moment, anyway. “He had no right! There are Rules!”

  Cassandra frowned at him. It hadn’t taken Prisoner long to diffuse the witch’s trap with Maya’s instruction, and Cassandra, in turn, had been able to rouse Amelia. They had decided it was best for everyone to leave Harriet as she was.

  “As I understand it, Mr Calderon, you attacked someone under the protection of Faunt. The spirit, Maya, is working for Faunt and is therefore entitled to protect his interests.”

  The witch took Bob’s broken hand between her own, which glowed slightly.

  “She acquired the temporary services of our prisoner to act on her behalf due to her incorporeal situation – which I believe you are responsible for. Where do you think the Rules were broken?”

  Cassandra had seen everything, as Simon suspected. But the movements he had seen, he assumed, were actually from the invisible Prisoner creeping into the room.

  “I have a claim over Robert!” he screeched. “A right to revenge!”

  “It wasn’t Bob she was protecting,” Cassandra answered. “You were, arguably, within your rights until you threatened Simon. He is under Faunt’s protection. If you wish to try to take revenge on Bob now, be my guest.”

  She took a step out of his line of sight and released Bob’s hand. “Nobody will stop you.”

  Bob stretched and contracted his fingers tentatively, smiling at the apparent lack of pain. Calderon glared at Simon instead. It was uncomfortable. He turned away, nervously, to speak to Prisoner.

  “So, you can turn invisible?” he asked. “That’s … brilliant.”

  “Ain't it?” he answered. “Made it a lot easier to get out of them dungeons this time, too. Imagine if I'd known...”

  “How did you find out?” Simon asked.

  “Well, the young lady, Maya, told me what I could do and helped get me up here.”

  “Who is Maya?” asked Bob.

  “She is a good friend of Faunt’s - and mine,” Cassandra answered, directing the last part at the intruder. “She was murdered by this man and is now a spirit.”

  “Oh. Is she still here?” Simon asked, skipping over his brain's instinctive response: “A ghost?!”

  “No,” Cassandra and Prisoner answered together.

  “She needs a person to act as an anchor for her spirit or she dissipates. She has to return to them often. She's gone there now,” Cassandra explained.

  “Oh, OK. That makes sense,” said Simon.

  “I’ll thank her later,” Bob added.

  “Madam, if you’re now in control here, would you mind if I leave?” Prisoner asked. “I have … things to do. You understand.”

  “Of course, thank you again,” Cassandra smiled. “And good luck.”

  Prisoner turned to leave.

  “This is not over!” Calderon was throwing spittle everywhere as he ranted at everybody.

  “Now,” Cassandra addressed Calderon again, “you have broken into my home, attacked me and, at the very least, inconvenienced my guests. What, would the Rules say, is an appropriate recompense for that?”

  Calderon breathed heavily.

  “Kill him,” Simon suggested, suddenly hit by what the bastard had told him in the midst of the chaos. “He murdered Cherry.”

  “Oh, hell,” said Bob. “I forgot. Simon, I’m sorry.”

  Bob put his hand on Simon’s shoulder.

  “He’s right,” the giant added, “can we kill him?”

  “Not easily,” Cassandra answered, “And not without a price.”

  “Cass?” It was Amelia. She had sat quietly watching ever since she came round. “Don’t we need to go? The sun’s up. Won’t Dad wake up soon?”

  “You’re coming?” Bob asked, his voice cracking.

  Amelia smiled and nodded, tears running down her face. She stood up and Bob grabbed her into a joyful embrace.

  For Simon, it was bittersweet, but he smiled for them anyway.

  “Yes, but we need to make a decision about him,” Cassandra said. “If we leave him here, he'll come after us. If we take him with us … that would be dangerous.”

  The room fell silent. Calderon grinned.

  “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” he sang quietly, taunting them.

  Bob walked out of the room. Simon and Cassandra both looked to Amelia, wondering where he was going. She shrugged.

  “He is scared,” Calderon drawled, before spitting blood on the floor. “He knows he cannot escape me.”

  Was he right? Bob had left him inside a bridge and he came back. How could they keep him permanently out of the way?

  The door clunked open again as Bob re-entered. He moved so quickly towards Calderon that it took Simon a minute to realise what he was carrying. He'd been to the woodpile.

  “Wait!” Calderon cried in panic.

  He had no time to say anything else before Bob brought the axe around in a huge arc and, with one blow, took the Spaniard's head clean off.

  ----

  “OK,” said Cassandra, after everyone had come to terms with Bob's somewhat spectacular course of action, “here’s the plan. I’ll carry his head in this,” she lifted a bag from a drawer. “Bob, can you carry his body?”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “If his body is destroyed, he will grow a new one. But not if the old one is intact. It’s best we keep it safe and separate from his head. Priest will burn it. We have to take it with us.”

  The thought of Calderon growing an entire body from his head stunned the room back into silence.

  “OK,” Bob eventually answered.

  “Excellent,” Cassandra turned to Simon, “That leaves Harr
iet to you, Simon. Is that OK?”

  Simon quickly decided that if Bob could carry the headless body of a man who had tortured him for years, he could probably manage his drunk great-aunt.

  “Yes,” he answered, “but I need to do something first, so can somebody please dress her?”

  Cassandra looked at her watch. “You understand Priest will wake up soon? He’s been nice to you because you’re guests. You do not want to be here when he finds out what’s really happening.”

  Simon nodded. “It’s important.”

  “It’s your life, I guess,” the witch conceded. “OK. I have three things to do anyway.”

  “What?” asked Amelia.

  “Cauterise that neck so that it doesn’t make a mess of Bob and get rid of the blood on the floor.”

  “Won’t that take a long time?” Bob asked.

  “Not the way she’s going to do it,” Amelia answered for her.

  “You said three things?” Simon reminded her.

  “Yes,” she lifted Calderon’s head off the floor. “We need to gag this thing in case he starts shouting again.”

  ----

  Simon knocked at the door. It was louder than he’d intended, but he needed to make sure he woke the occupant.

  The door finally opened after he knocked a second time.

  “Morning,” said a bleary-eyed Sean. “Isn’t it a bit early?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I have to be quick, and I’m sorry, but so do you. We’re leaving. Right now. In a hurry. And Priest is going to be very angry. That’s why we’re in a hurry. Anyway, we have to go. But I wanted to ask if you want to come, too. I mean, it seems like you went to a lot of trouble to save us. And I think you like Harriet and maybe she likes you too and so you should come.”

  Sean looked shell-shocked.

  “So, you got what you came for, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “Cassandra.”

  “Fuck me. Seriously?”

  Simon nodded.

  “Right, then. Give us a minute.”

  Sean opened the door and waved him in. Simon could feel his heart pounding. This had been a big risk, but it was the right thing to do. Sean deserved it. He just hoped he’d judged the situation correctly.