The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 10

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “She’s for sale.”

  “That so? How much for how long?”

  “You misunderstand me, mister. You buy her, she’s yours.”

  “You her poppa?”

  “Nah, but she is distant kin. I got plenty of my own to feed. I’ll let you have her for a good price.”

  “To keep?”

  “Sure … until you want to sell her to someone else. Or, if she’s all worn out by then, just leave her someplace. I’ll let her go for $500.”

  He stepped over to the girl and raised her chin in his hand. He held her for a moment, assessed the touch of her skin, and peered into her eyes. “She looks kinda young. What is she? Thirteen?”

  “She’ll be 14 come September. And, I’ll be honest, she ain’t no virgin, but she’ll do things for you and the missus that won’t make you care what the weather’s like anytime. Truth is, I’ve had her myself. You won’t get a much tighter, slippery-slidin’ pussy and a cocksucking tongue like that little girl got. And don’t let her size fool you; she’ll keep going ’till you and the missus pass out and then clean ya’ll up while you’re sleepin’. So, whadya say? Five hundred dollars?”

  “Three hundred dollars.”

  “Four hundred dollars.”

  “Three-fifty.”

  “I hate to let her go for that, but we’re a bit low on gas and provisions, so I guess you talked me into it, mister. You sure know how to jew a man down.”

  The fat man chuckled and offered his hand, which was ignored.

  He counted out the bills and dropped them into the hammy hand. “Come along, sweetie.”

  He guided the girl by her shoulder toward his cabin. As they stepped on to the porch and approached the screen door he shouted, “Baby, I’m back … with a little treat.”

  The girl preceded him without hesitation. As the screen door slapped behind him, a brunette came out of the bathroom. She held a formidable syringe.

  The girl turned on one heel, her hair shot up toward the ceiling like a hundred streamers; the streamers transformed into ribbons of leaves that lashed at his face like razor grass. As he pushed her away he found his hands clasped around a green stalk, a series of mouths along its length bristling with spike-like teeth. His cheeks stung where the razor-leaves nicked him.

  “Spike it!”

  The brunette came up behind the creature and pushed the syringe into the stalk. “It won’t go in!” she cried.

  “Push harder!”

  There was a hiss, then the thing shuddered and an ear-splitting shriek made his spine jangle. The thing seemed to wither and rot in his hands. He let it fall.

  “Holy shit!” the woman said.

  “You let it see the syringe.”

  “I know; I screwed up. I’m sorry. I was getting it ready just as you came in.”

  “It’s little mistakes like that that’ll get you killed … or worse.”

  “I know. Sorry. What the hell was that stuff we injected it with?”

  “You didn’t get any on your hands, did you?”

  “No, I used the whole hazmat get-up. That’s why it took me so long. So what the hell was it?”

  “Ever hear of Agent Orange?”

  “Um, no.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-five.”

  “Hmm. Well, it’s a pretty powerful defoliant. It’ll kill any plant life on contact; it’ll kill you too, after a while, if you get it on you.”

  “What the hell did you say that thing was again?”

  “It doesn’t have a name, actually. It’s called by a dozen or so different things, cane devil, sugar shrieker.”

  “What about the other kids in that trailer?”

  “I’m sure they’re human. You see, that lovely couple made a living selling kids, and that’s likely what they were intending to do to those others, before they met up with the thing.”

  “Selling children? To whom, for what?”

  “I shouldn’t have to draw you a picture. You think this thing we just killed was a monster? That white trash cracker and his sow … they’re the real fucking monsters. Weak-minded bozos. This thing was running them, probably running them back home to Louisiana and murdering all the way with those two boobs giving it cover.”

  “What then – when they got to Louisiana?”

  “The legends around this thing say it spawns from the remains of unwanted infants buried in the cane fields. As usual with legends, there’s a kernel of truth to them. We’ve found that they gestate in the ground and live off a living host. Sort of like spiders; they don’t kill their prey, they paralyse them and come back to eat them at their leisure while they’re alive.”

  “Yecch!”

  “Those kids were on their way to getting planted in some cane field to feed the next generation of these things. Let’s hope we put an end to the cycle.”

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure I can do this job.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “For the umpteenth-thousandth time: Rachel!”

  “Oh, yeah. Okay, Racey, you clean up here and I’ll see to Mr and Mrs Hog Jowls.”

  “Racey!”

  “I’m better at remembering nicknames.”

  Before she could say anything more the screen door slapped closed and he was gone.

  The man at the trailer bolted out of his chair as Locan approached.

  “What’s the matter, friend? You look surprised to see me.”

  The man wiped his chin with his palm. “Uh, well, whatsa matter? Didn’t she … uh …?”

  “Oh, yeah, she did pretty much what we expected her to do.”

  The woman tumbled out of the trailer. She held a hatchet in her hand. “We don’t want no trouble, mister.” Her voice was like pebbles rattling inside a can.

  “Well, Mr and Mrs Lard Ass. You got trouble.”

  He tugged the revolver from behind his back, leveled it at the man’s forehead and fired. He fell back in a wet thud. The woman was about to scream; a second bullet cut it short.

  “You say you’re peace officers?” The dubious deputy held the IDs under his flashlight.

  Another cruiser pulled up behind them. The sheriff emerged, surveyed the scene and growled, “What the hell we got here?”

  “Got a call of shots fired from the owner and found two people shot through the head outside the trailer there. Took a .44 Bulldog off him, and a pretty little Beretta off the lady. They say they’re law officers.”

  The sheriff took the IDs from the deputy. “They don’t look like any badges I ever seen. What’s that say? Palatinus? And the rest, what the heck language is that?”

  “I think it’s Latin, sir.”

  “Latin?”

  The sheriff spun away from the deputy and strode toward the suspect. His eyes narrowed. “Garreth Locan, that you?”

  “Yes, sheriff. I assure you, we are law officers.”

  “What’s this thing here? On your badge?”

  “That’s the papal seal.”

  “Hey, what? Papal, huh?”

  Before he needed to answer, several more cars pulled up, unmarked. Squads of suits emerged and surrounded the deputies.

  One approached. “Special Agent Mullens, sheriff, we’ll take over from here.”

  “What? Now we got the Federal B-I pokin’ their noses in our jurisdiction? Well, Agent Mullens, I got two bodies and two homicide suspects that ain’t going anywhere, ’til I get some answers.”

  “You couldn’t hold them anyway, Sheriff. They have diplomatic immunity.”

  “Dippo-what?”

  “They’re traveling under Vatican passports with consul privileges. Now, sheriff, I can’t really explain except that sensitive matters of state are involved. We’ll take over.”

  “Well, shee-it!” The sheriff nodded at the deputy who uncuffed the suspects. “Let’s get out of here.”

  As the sheriff’s cars rumbled away trailing dust, Mullens turned toward the pair. “Locan, get what you were after?”


  “Yes, and what you were after too. There’re four young kids in that trailer … merchandise.”

  “The killings? These two responsible, like we figured?” he asked, pointing to the bodies aswarm in a cloud of flies.

  “Not directly. The killings were done by what we were after.”

  “Do I want to know?”

  “If you like.”

  “Never mind. New partner?” Mullens held out his hand to Rachel.

  “Yeah, meet Racey McDaniel.”

  “Racey?” Mullens grinned.

  “Rachel,” she insisted.

  “Well, once you’ve been nicknamed by Locan, it’s like being baptized again; there’s no undoing it.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Got a message for you, Locan. Didn’t come through the usual channels. ‘C & C will meet you at the tavern in Oriskany. Three days.’”

  “Upstate New York? Well, then, we’d better saddle up. Good to see you, Mullens. Be careful of things that go bump in the night.”

  “I’m more worried about thing’s that go bang in the night.”

  Rachel hadn’t said anything since they’d left Sloane’s Hideaway in the Pines. Now they had entered the Interstate and were hurtling north toward a rendezvous in New York that he hadn’t seen any need to fill her in on. She thought, after two weeks of traveling and working together, that she deserved a briefing. She hadn’t screwed up that much. He never offered much conversation anyway, but now he was dumb as a rock. It irritated her.

  “You just shot those people,” she said when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

  “Yes … yes I did.”

  “I didn’t think that … that’s not what we’re about … or is it?”

  “We hunt and destroy monsters; I told you, those cracker-ass cretins were worse than the cane devil we killed.”

  “But they were people.”

  “So?”

  “You killed them in cold blood.”

  “Hmm.”

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You said that before, but here you are.”

  “Not by choice.”

  “Ha! None of us are. We took the horse by the door.”

  “Horse?”

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “They don’t make you do penance for nothing.”

  She shrugged and thrust out her lower lip in a petulant pout. “Didn’t they tell you?” she demanded.

  “Yes, but I’d like to hear it from you. It seems you’re a very dangerous young woman.”

  “I’ll tell you, but you have to tell me first; how’d you become a Paladin?”

  “I killed a priest.”

  “I heard there was more to it than that.”

  “Yeah, well things get exaggerated.”

  “I heard he was a vampire.”

  “Not exactly. He just had a disease that brought out the worst in him. See, he was an evil rat-shit bastard anyway. He was a pervert in a Roman collar, but something had happened to him; he’d come across something that infected him. Anyway, he was moved around a lot and then he was assigned to our parish. I was seventeen and my mother would rather we go hungry than miss church.”

  “Sounds like my mother.”

  “Uh-huh. So, anyway, right after Father Fred showed up a lot of the little kids in the parish started dying. I remember the state health department coming in and giving us all vaccinations and taking blood and urine and who knows what else. They couldn’t figure out what the hell it was; the rest of the city was in a panic wanting to quarantine the neighborhood. Meanwhile, my little sister is getting ready for her first communion. The nuns rounded up all the kids for their first confession, but Mary was scared, so she asked me to come along.”

  “Something happened?”

  “I stayed in the shadows on the other side of the church and kept an eye on her. She goes into the confessional, but a second or two later, Mary steps out and Father Fred opens the door to his stall and brings her in with him. I thought that was odd. A lot of time went by; I got up, walked across the church and headed toward the confessional. Some fat tub of a nun tried to stop me so I tossed her on her ass, and then I flung open the confessional. He’d locked it, but it broke.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Mary was unconscious on his lap. I thought it was some kind of snake; it was his tongue. He tried to retract it. It was longer than my arm. I didn’t think about it. I grabbed him by the throat with one hand and drove my fist into his chest with the other. The next thing I know Mary and all the nuns behind me are screaming and I’m holding the prick’s heart in my hands squeezing it into mush.”

  “Your sister?”

  “She got sick; she almost died, but after a few weeks she pulled through. And no more kids died after that. I was taken into custody, of course. My mom had a hard time after that, being the mother of a priest killer, after all. The neighbors gave her a lot of shit right up until she died.”

  “But, didn’t they see …”

  “Nobody saw anything. Or they just ignored what they’d seen. Anyway, a few days later this big hulking monsignor shows up in my cell. He believes my story, but then he shows me the horse by the door and says, take it or leave it. I took it.”

  “That monsignor, was he a tall black guy with a French accent?”

  He laughed. “I thought they’d have retired him by now. So he made a visit to you too.”

  “Yeah, except he didn’t mention anything about a horse.”

  He shrugged. “Monsignor Hobson.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Go on with your story.”

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Well, let’s see, I expect your family was pretty religious, and pretty strict about it.”

  “Yeah, but I believed … I really believed.”

  “I’m guessing it was your mother’s idea that you enter the convent.”

  “No … it was mine.”

  “Now, that’s surprising.”

  “Why?”

  He looked her up and down. Suddenly she was acutely conscious of her bare legs.

  “You don’t dress like a nun. Black leather hot pants, black-silk whatever it is – I suppose it would be a blouse if it covered your tummy. Oh, and let’s not forget the cleavage-enhancing bra with the lace top showing. Nice legs.”

  Maybe she had dressed to get his attention, but now he made her feel cheap, and practically naked. He made her feel small, like a little girl. A big daddy figure, he was, but some daddy. She watched him in profile a moment. His face could have been carved out of granite, but his lips were soft, full. And his eyes, darker than brown, but not quite black. A full head of hair, dark, wavy, except for that white flair by his temple.

  Finally, she answered, hoping her voice didn’t waver. “I didn’t think you noticed.”

  “I’d have to be dead not to notice. So, you went to the convent and it was all your idea.”

  “Mother was proud.”

  “Mother? You called your mom ‘Mother’?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “Okay, so what happened at the convent?”

  “I … I fell in love.”

  “Oh? In a barracks full of women?”

  “You must know; they must have told you. I wasn’t expecting it. I liked boys … I mean, I was attracted to them.”

  “But you were attracted to girls too.”

  “That’s why I went into the convent.”

  “Excuse me; you cloistered yourself up with a few hundred women because you were afraid you were attracted to women?”

  “Okay, it was stupid. But, I thought … you take a vow of chastity. I thought the life would keep me in line.”

  “Yeah, heard that before. So?”

  “So, there was another postulant. Sister Anita. She was so scared. We became friends, and then we came to the notice of Sister Arthur Francis.”

  “Mother Superior?�
��

  “No, but her second in command. The MS was pretty far gone with senility.”

  “Power abhors a vacuum.”

  “She was such a vicious bitch. And a mean butch. She’d been abusing a lot of the young sisters; everyone just looked the other way. Anita and I tried to avoid her whenever we could. I guess, it was because we looked out for each other so much, that it developed into something more.”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  “We couldn’t avoid Sister Arthur Francis forever. She could tell what was going on. Then one night she paid a visit to Anita’s cell. She made her … well, afterward she said Anita would do whatever she wanted or she would make my life a hell.”

  “Why do you suppose she picked on Anita, instead of you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “Maybe, it was because I’d have put up a fight.”

  “Of course, you were stronger. She was afraid of you.”

  “I don’t know about that, considering what happened.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Anita had been crying all day. I snuck in to see her that night, to comfort her as much as I could. We ended up … making love. It must have been a set-up. The bitch had been after her all day; she knew I’d try to go to her that night. Anyway, she came barging in with this … it looked like a broom handle. She called us every filthy thing you could think of. Then she starts to undress herself and tells us to lie across the bed. That’s when she announces she’s going to beat us, and afterward we were both to … to … pleasure her. That’s just how she said it, ‘pleasure’ her.”

  “And?”

  “The next thing I know Sister Arthur Francis is writhing on the floor screaming, her hands plastered to her eyes. Anita’s screaming too, hysterical. The other sisters came running and I got put in a cell by myself. They locked me in. A couple of days later the big black monsignor arrived. He said Sister Arthur Francis had been blinded and I was in a whole lot of trouble. Then he gave me the choice. I agreed, and the next morning we landed in Rome. Took me right through customs. I didn’t even have a passport.”

  “So, you blinded the bitch.”

  “I don’t know how I was supposed to have done that. I was mad, mad out of my mind, angry for what she’d done to Anita. I just remember coming off the bed and going for her.”