Whiskey and Wry

by Rhys Ford

  “I should go back and fucking gut that bitch.” The blond spat onto the floor, adding to the bloody mess. His saliva was a pink froth, and Sionn wondered how the man was even standing. Clutching at his side, the man stumbled past Leigh, his eyes glazed over with pain. He pawed at the dining table, searching for something to use among the metal objects scattered there.

  “Miki’s what… almost thirty or forty pounds smaller than you?” Sionn taunted the blond, but he kept his eyes to the ground, looking for the knife he’d seen fly out of the man’s hand. “Scared of facing someone your own size then, arsehole?”

  A flash of metal caught his attention, and he edged toward a small table he’d set near the loft’s entrance. Used mostly as someplace he tossed his keys, Sionn hoped he was looking at a blade and not some spare change he’d thrown into an oak bowl Kane’d discarded as junk. The light from a picture window above the side table shone down on the blade when the sun broke free of a passing cloud, the seeping glow creeping down the gap between the tabletop and the wall.

  His sigh of relief when he saw it was the actual knife could only have been called orgasmic, and Sionn tossed the chair at the man’s head, then dove for the table. He hit the smooth floor hard, skidding forward on its polished surface before slamming into a messy pile against the elevator doors. Fumbling around under the table, Sionn nicked his fingertip on the blade’s edge before he could find the handle. His fingers were slick with a smear of blood, and the wooden grip slipped around in his palm a bit, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the blond man across the room.

  Especially since the man came up from his weapons hunt with a small hatchet and an evil, sadistic grin.

  Sionn wedged his foot against the wall to give himself leverage, spun around, then flopped over and pushed himself up onto his hands. Getting his legs under him and his body up off the floor were his first priority, especially since the blond had spotted him. A feral hunger seemed to take over the other man, and Sionn knew if he didn’t get up off the floor, he was going to be deader than the skewered man sitting in his dining room.

  His shoulder hurt, a small enough pain to distract, but a steady pound of raw anxiety shot through his veins, and the pain faded into the background. Drawing his knee up, he anchored his other foot on the floor. Sionn felt his thigh muscle bulge along the seam of his scar, and then the telltale seize of a cramp bit into his leg, dropping him back to the floor.

  Rage mottled the blond’s face, flushing it an even darker hue than Sionn thought was possible, considering the map work of bruises on his skin. The man’s arms windmilled, and he slid through the bloody smears on the floor, nearly losing his balance again when he tried to break into a run. He slapped his hand on the table, regained his balance, and twisted back around, then kicked his loafers off. With his feet clad in dry trouser socks, he began to pick his way across the floor, warily avoiding the larger spills as he headed to the elevator doors.

  “Do you know what I’m going to enjoy the most, Murphy?” The thickened Southern twang of the man’s voice brought Sionn’s head up. He’d heard a whisper of it on the edges before, but something dark and primal resurfaced in the blond’s eyes, wiping away any polish he might have lacquered over his manners. “I think I’m going to enjoy carving off pieces of you and feeding them to your boy. The thought of him dying from choking to death on a piece of your meat makes me a very happy man inside. A very happy man.”

  The chair Sionn had flung at him was within reach of the blond’s hatchet, and he buried its head in the wooden back. Splinters flew when he jerked it loose, and the long plank split, the crack continuing down to its punctured seat. The knife lodged in the chair was gone, loosened in the fracas, but Sionn spotted its handle near Leigh’s feet. Making a face at her, he jerked his chin down, and she craned her neck, nodding frantically, then brought her foot down on the blade to hide it.

  “Good girl,” Sionn muttered to himself. His leg wasn’t giving him an inch. It ached and pulled as he fought to get up. The wall’s rough brick surface dug into his hand, tearing at his skin, but he continued to drag himself up, hooking his fingers into the thin lines of grout for leverage. His nails scraped at the gritty mortar, tearing chunks of skin from his fingertips, but he kept himself focused on the man stalking him.

  “You got a name, loser?” The knife was getting more slippery, and Sionn risked switching hands long enough to wipe his palms. “Or did they just call you son growing up? I hear people do that sometimes when they’ve given birth to a piece of shite like you.”

  “Ya’ll fucking smug now, Murphy,” the blond sneered. “I was going to use a gun, you know? Thinking that maybe I should make it quick, but after playing Duck Hunt with you, I want this to hurt. And that shit-eating grin of yours is going to be the first thing I take off.”

  From where Sionn stood, taking off his loafers wouldn’t do the man any good. The cleaning crew he’d hired seemed to have taken their job very seriously. The wood floor had enough wax on it that he could take a scraper to it and make candles from what he pulled up. Clad in trouser socks, the blond was having a hard time walking a straight line, his feet slipping out from underneath him after every step.

  “Should I stand really still for you, boyo?” he tossed back. “Or do you want me to be turning around so you can sneak up on me like you did to Miki? Is that the kind of man you are? Going after the weak like Damie’s mother because you aren’t man enough to take me?”

  Something in Sionn’s face must have infuriated the blond because his demeanor shifted, going cold and still. Straightening up, the blond drew himself up to his full height and looked down his craggy nose at Sionn, nostrils flaring with his ripening temper. Glancing down at the hatchet, the man’s upper lip curled derisively, and he tossed it aside, sending the axe head flying through one of the windows facing the sidewalk. The glass shattered, pebbling outward into a shower of sparkling bits, shards spewing out with the hatchet as it tumbled down to the busy street below.

  “Man enough? I’ll be man enough for you, Murphy.” The blond’s footsteps shook the wood planking when he stomped carefully forward. His fists were enormous chunks of bone and sinew, meaty and drawn white over his knuckles when he worked his fingers to loosen them up. “I’m going to be man enough to tear you apart with my bare fucking hands.”

  At some point in his life, the man once had speed. Enraged, his anger fueled a burst of power to rain down on Sionn like an unholy fire called up by a sadistic demon, because the blond suddenly broke loose, churning his legs in a powerful thrust.

  Unable to straighten his leg, Sionn could only seat himself against the wall and angle the knife up, hoping he could get in a good hit before the man’s greater weight overpowered him. The light coming from the window illuminated the man’s wild features, bleaching out his pale flesh until it was nearly alabaster around his vividly bruised skin. Then the light turned to darkness as the man’s bulk swallowed up the sun pouring through the windows and he slammed into Sionn’s crouched-over body.

  For a moment, Sionn thought the crack he heard was his own spine giving way beneath the man’s muscled form, but when he toppled, a length of hard wood was shoved up into his back, and some small part of his brain caught sight of a lion-footed table leg spinning up into the air. The blond got lucky, and his hands slipped under Sionn’s arms, locking down on Sionn’s windpipe before he could take a good stab.

  Amid the crash of wood and the brutal dig of the windowsill against his body, Sionn’s brain overloaded. He knew hurt. He just couldn’t pinpoint which of the pains coursing through him were important to focus on until his lungs began to strain and Sionn realized he wasn’t getting any more oxygen into them.

  The man’s strong fingers were closed over his neck, and the air was being choked out of Sionn’s throat, every increment of pressure squeezing just a little more of Sionn’s life out of him. Swallowing, he flailed, hoping to break free, but the blond’s grip was too tight. The adrenaline was leaving him fast,
and Sionn pushed out, hoping the knife he had in his hand was good for something. The man was too big, much too big to do anything more than furiously stab upward over and over and hope for the best. Pressed up against the wall, Sionn was trapped, and a thin black veil was beginning to creep up on him, small sparkling lights flashing at the edges of his vision.

  “Man enough for you, fucker?” the blond screamed, spitting into Sionn’s face. Then he pulled Sionn forward and slammed him back into the wall.

  Sionn’s teeth rattled in his skull when he met the wall again, and his fingers went slack, too numb to hold onto the knife any longer. He felt wet, drenched in blood and sweat, with only a little bit of fight left in him… until he spotted the battered plastic guitar case lying on the loft’s floor, its handle broken and hanging from a single hinge.

  That was a reason to fight. Because Damien wanted his… their… guitar back. And he’d promised he would bring it down. Just like he’d promised he’d be there for the troubled guitarist as he picked his way through pain-shattered memories and as he built back up a life that had been taken from him.

  Damien was more than enough reason to fight.

  A knee was the blond’s undoing. Short and sweet, Sionn jerked his leg up, straining the seizing cramp until the agony made him blind. Standing, he slammed into the man again and Sionn heard the sweet whoosh of air leaving a man’s full lungs, a sound so familiar to him from growing up in a pack of boisterous, hard-playing boys. It sounded so painful, his own balls clenched and pulled up at the thought of being struck.

  Howling, the blond lost purchase on Sionn’s neck, and he gasped, pulling in as much air as he could. Coughing, Sionn turned aside, slumping against the closed window to catch his breath. Then the blond lunged again, shoving his full weight against Sionn’s upper body, and a great cracking sound bounced about the loft’s metallic-scented air.

  The ceiling tilted and Sionn struggled to keep on his feet but the blond’s heft shoved them both toward the window. It gave with a loud snapping crinkle and they struggled, their arms around each other’s shoulders. Glass from the cracked window cut through Sionn’s T-shirt and stabbing pains sliced through Sionn’s hips. He windmilled his legs, hoping to hook his feet onto something to break his fall, and he let the blond go to grab at the window frame. Glass cut at his face and another large piece dug into his hands. He couldn’t find the ledge and the blond dropped his shoulder and swung at him.

  Sionn’s lungs froze from the fear ripping through him; then his fingers closed on the jutting shards of glass coming up from the sash. He was stuck, ass out and the blond hit him again. Unbalanced, his grip wasn’t enough to hold him steady and Sionn fell backward, going ass over teakettle out of the window behind them. The blond followed, free-falling through the empty frame, carried by his momentum.

  The blond went over him, hips slamming into Sionn’s shoulders and then his back. Sionn felt a brief tug and a hard yank, probably the man’s hands as he tried to grab a hold of anything to keep himself from falling, and his weight pulled at Sionn. He nearly lost his grip, unable to support their mass, and the glass dug deeper into Sionn’s palms, smaller pieces continuing to break off and pepper Sionn’s upraised face with pricks of pain.

  Then the weight was gone, and Sionn was left hanging in the cold San Francisco wind as he heard the wet splat and chunk of the blond man’s body hitting the street below.

  HE WAS on the phone with Miki when a shower of glass rained down on him. Ducking, Damien slid off of the curb, briefly looking up to count the number of floors above him. An icy chill cupped his heart, squeezing in on his fear until it popped, spreading its poisonous vapors through his mind.

  “Call 911, Sinjun. Tell the cops to get over to Sionn’s,” he yelled into the phone. “Get someone here to help.”

  Something had happened to the phone. If Damien had thought hard about what that was, he might have realized he’d tossed it through the lobby’s glass doors when he couldn’t get them open. After kicking out the panels, he stepped over the mess he made, a sense of relief flooding through him when the elevator buttons lit up.

  “Shit, the key. I need a key to get up there.” If luck was dealing out winning hands, Damien felt like he was pulling up all aces. Sionn’s access key was still lodged in its slot, its glow-in-the-dark fob swaying from the elevator’s descent. “Fuck me, thank you, God. Red fish for you as soon as I figure out what the fuck’s going on.”

  “Come on, come on….” Damien coaxed and pleaded, but the elevator jerked and whined its way up to the top floor. Another eternity passed before the doors slid open to let him out.

  Just in time to see Sionn and another man falling out of one of the loft’s windows.

  “Sionn!”

  There wasn’t space in his mind or heart to contemplate the horrors of what was around him. A pile of body parts and Leigh, breathing and pink, were affixed to chairs, but the one was too far gone for him to help and Leigh seemed to be alive enough for him not to worry.

  If he were honest enough in that split second, he wasn’t worrying about anyone but Sionn, because staring at the man’s hands as they clung to the windowsill, Damien felt like his heart was dangling right alongside him.

  “Hold on, Irish.” Damien stumbled over the remains of a chair and a fractured wooden bowl. He kicked away as much of the glass as he could, grabbed his lover’s wrists, and held on. “Fuck, how do I do this? You’re bleeding all over….”

  “Just listen to me, a rún.” Sionn sounded a lot calmer than Damie felt. “Put your feet against the wall. That’ll give you some leverage.”

  “Dude, there’s too much glass. You look like you’re doing Jesus role-play right now.” Shoving his sneakers against the wall, Damie anchored himself carefully. “I told Miki to call 911. Don’t you fucking fall on me.”

  He thought he could never be more frightened than he was right then. Fear tasted terrible, mottling his saliva with a bitter stickiness. Sionn was heavy, and his weight dragged Damien forward. He fought the pull, straining to keep himself steady enough for his lover to pull up over the sill.

  “Hold on. I’ll be right there,” Sionn crooned. His voice was rough, raw with emotion. It was a hard fight. Then suddenly a shift of glass broke, tinkling to the floor. Damie held on tighter, not willing to let his lover fall. “I’m okay, love. I’m going to put my leg up now. Don’t let me go.”

  “Never going to fucking let you go,” Damien growled.

  Their eyes met, catching both of them unaware, and Sionn smiled slowly, warming Damien’s insides.

  “I know, babe,” Sionn whispered softly as sirens tore the air apart around them. “I know you’ll never let me go.”

  Chapter 20

  D, how come there’s nothing that really rhymes with orange?

  Sinjun, you are one crazy fuck.

  You’re wearing a pair of boxers with hippie sharks on them and I’m a crazy fuck?

  They’re not hippie sharks. Look at them. They’re Rastasharkians.

  And we’re back to you being the crazy fuck. Find me something that rhymes with orange.

  —Living Room Session, 3 a.m.

  “I CAN’T believe they’re friends,” Sionn whispered into Damien’s ear. “It’s like watching the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding down upon us. God help us if Edie and Aunt B find the other two.”

  By the second whiskey on the rocks, Edie had sashayed over to Sionn and left a bright red lipstick mark on his cheek. He’d initially been fearful of the woman both Miki and Damien depended so heavily on. She was lean and definitely mean, eyeing him like a piece of meat that she’d not yet decided was good enough for the dogs, much less herself. And his anxiety certainly wasn’t laid to rest once he realized the band’s manager and his Aunt Brigid appeared to be soul mates.

  Such cohesiveness did not bode well for his sanity.

  And from the twitch in Kane’s left eye, he knew his cousin was thinking the same thing.

  “Here, drink up.” K
ane handed Sionn a bottle of chocolate stout. “I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

  It was a celebration of sorts at the Morgan house. The siblings were gathered around Donal’s altar to the fire gods, and the smell of barbequing ribs filled the late afternoon air. Dude spent most of his time wandering from person to person, begging bits of devilled egg and chips, and despite Kane’s continued threats to unload a farting dog on his parents, the Morgans continued to feed him.

  Every lawn chair the family owned had been dragged out, and a few of the sturdy kitchen stools somehow made their way outside as well. Claiming one of the Adirondack loungers, Sionn sat back and let Brigid pamper him, keeping a watchful eye on the begging dog when Miki gave him a plate of chips, cut veggies, and dip.

  “Oh, go off, you beggar.” Kane shooed the terrier with a gentle shove of his foot. The dog seemed to grin back at him, then trotted away, circling the picnic table Miki and Damien were sitting on top of. Nodding his chin at the pair, he grumbled, “You know, if we’d done that, Mom would have had our asses. How many fucking times have we heard ‘No sitting anywhere we eat,’ huh?”

  “Pfah, she’s got new favorites now.” Sionn delicately took the bottle, mindful of the strips of gauze bandages around his palms. “Although it looks like she’s kept Quinn. It’s just you and me that’s on the outs.”

  It’d been two days since the doctors picked all the glass out of his hands, chest, and back, but Sionn could have sworn he still felt every single shard embedded under his skin. What pissed him off wasn’t the glass cuts or the bits of skin he’d peeled off in his fall. The doctor ordered him to take it easy with his hands, which included running his bare hands over a naked and willing Damien.

  It was an order Sionn would be violating as soon as he got the other man into a room with a door that could lock.