“Evening, Ms. Kohl. Thank you for getting my name right this time.”
“No problem.” I say. The stars in front of my eyes are starting to clear, so I try again to move to where I can get a better view of the shape behind Tom. I don’t know why I need to see it, but it seems like something Mary would want. My vision’s blurry, and it’s too far to see from here. If I could only get closer.
Another boot smacks into me, this time in my ribs. The kick is lighter, but still enough to drop me down from my knees. I sprawl out on the floor and groan.
“Just stay down, Ms. Kohl.” says Tom. “You don’t need to make this more difficult than it already is. It’ll be over soon enough. Our friend will be getting here soon.”
It was hard enough to breathe with all the dust in the air, and gets even worse with the pain now rolling through my chest after the kick. I still need to get closer to the shape. I need to be sure.
I try crawling again but Tom isn’t having it. His first stomp catches my bad leg, making me scream. The second comes my way, but by some miracle I get a sense of it coming, and manage to scoot forward enough for it to hit nothing.
Tom shifts position to keep up with me, moving to my side before rearing his leg back for another kick at my side. I don’t try to defend against it, because I’ve already gotten what I need - a clear view of the shape. The shape of Mary.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
No.
Another boot, this one cracking my ribs. Pain.
No.
Still another aimed at the bad leg again. More pain, along with something else.
No.
Muted voices, growing close all around me. Some of them asking where the garbage bags are, the others telling me to stop moving or freeze. I feel rough hands in my hair and a tug as someone lifts my head high enough for a blade to come close to my throat. The movement gives me another clear view of Mary. Not breathing. A broken, lonely thing.
No.
I reach up with one hand before the knife can touch flesh. I don’t know who I’m reaching for. I just grab hard onto a shirt sleeve, and reach for my lighter with my other hand.
The drop takes us down into the heat of the pit. Someone’s screaming, not me, and I don’t bother looking to see who.
I just let go, and leave the shouting behind me in the pit.
The next instant, I land back inside of the clinic. My vision’s still blurry, but there’s a shape in front of me, one that’s standing man high.
None of the things in the room are people to me anymore. They’re just shapes. Less than that, so I grab the nearest one and drop down through downstairs again. I let the shape go and don’t listen when it screams. I return. Grab another one. Repeat. Repeat.
I don’t know how many I grab hold of and leave behind in the deeps. All I know is that I don’t stop until I get to the last shape. The one I catch stumbling back towards the hole in the wall. The one with a voice that I know too damn well.
“Hi Tom.” I say, flicking my lighter again.
The fire downstairs is still blazing, but I barely feel its heat. Tom opens his mouth to say something to me, or maybe to scream.
“Bye Tom.” I say as I let go of him downstairs. In the distance, coming closer, I can see other shapes. Shapes with wings and smiles and char shifting flesh.
I leave them all there behind me, and return to the clinic. It’s empty save for the girl with the flower, the shape of Mary, and me.
I walk over to Mary and lay a hand on her head.
“We’re going home.” I tell her.
She doesn’t answer me.
“We’re going home.” I say again, and then we leave.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ole Beeze finds me in my ruined kitchen a few hours later. I’ve been drinking, and barely notice when he takes a seat.
“You look like shit.” he says, handing me another beer. I take it, wishing I’d had something stronger in the house to take the edge off what I’ve …
No.
I down the bottle in one go, gag a little, and spit bile on the floor. Ole Beeze squints his eyes and me from the other side of the kitchen island. I take out another beer. Finally he speaks.
“”You can’t expect me to accept payment like this, little imp. Your end of the deal was three years of use. In the state you’re in, I’ll waste at least two of them waiting for you to heal.”
He reaches out and takes what’s left of the bottle out of my hands.
“And I can’t wear you if you die of alcohol poisoning.”
I ignore him, laying my head down on the island. My head hurts but my ribs are killing me. Even the burns on my arm and leg seem like bug bites in comparison. The world sways around me but nothing goes dark. God what I’d give for the world to go dark.
God. Why didn’t that bastard just kill me? At least then I wouldn’t have to see it. But I did see it. I saw exactly what those fuckers had done to Mary because Tom didn’t just want to kill me. He was waiting for someone. Someone who was coming for me.
“Why didn’t he just kill me?” I say the words out loud this time. Why not? Maybe god will hear and answer me.
God doesn’t answer. There’s only Ole Beeze.
“Excuse me?” he says.
I turn towards him, my head spinning as I do.
“When I was down on the ground after Tom Angler’s men made their breach. They had guns, I was defenseless, but they didn’t kill me.”
Ole Beeze is silent for a while, his face scrunched up, as if in concentration. Eventually he shrugs.
“Inexperience?” he says. “Panic? Not many can keep as cool a head as you. There’s a reason you’ve lived this long, after all.”
I lay there awhile, thinking about that. Thinking about my contacts, all dead within hours after taking my calls. Thinking about Mary, and how quickly she’d been taken after I’d turned down Tom Angler’s job offer. All of that took coordination and skill, but what followed the breach was an amateur move. It doesn’t fit.
“Bullshit.” I say. “His people were too good for that. One of them should have shot me. The only reason not to is if he’d ordered them not to.”
“Not everyone’s like you, little imp.” he repeats.
I think on that again, and realize that Ole Beeze is right.
“Yeah.” I say. “Most of them die. All of them, except for me.”
“Except for you.”
I hear an edge in his voice, one that I’d bumped into once earlier today. The last time I’d heard it was when I’d insulted him by mistake. I’d cowered, then, but I won’t be doing that now. Not after the day that I’ve had. Not after all that I’ve lost.
I leave my chair and am just sober enough to stagger to my feet. I walk over and get right into the face of my old mentor.
“I’m not afraid of you, Beeze.” I say. “If you take that tone with me, you can just go get the hell out of my house.”
“Enough.” Says Ole Beeze, rolling his eyes. “This game tires me. It’s enough.”
“Fuck you.” I snarl. Spittle arcs from my lips when I speak, spraying the stolen face of the woman he’s wearing.
Ole Beeze lifts a hand to his face and wipes the saliva away.
“First rule of an agreement,” he says, looking at his hand, “I can’t kill you.”
“No, you can’t.” I say, and am surprised to find that I sound disappointed. I think some idiotic part of me wanted him to get angry. Strike me down. Make all of this go away.
“It’s a shame that I can’t, really.” he continues. “After all that you’ve cost me, it would have been cheaper to do it myself.”
“Cost you?” I ask. “I paid you back a long time ago.”
“You paid for your bargain.” he says. “That’s not the same thing.”
He snorts.
“Your kind gets their power from me. Holds onto it, keeping it from me, until nature takes its course.”
Ole Beeze walks over to the wall of the kitchen and touches one
of the bullet holes.
“It gets tiring, little imp. The constant feeling of a piece that’s missing. A piece that’s far more than any of you ape-dogs deserve.” He sighs. “Besides, I hate waiting to go places. When you get to be half as old as me, even limos and first class get boring.”
My mind is sluggish, but the pieces from the day are starting to make sense.
“That’s why Tom didn’t finish me. He was waiting for you to come over. For you to see.”
“I told him not to.” Ole Beeze says with a sigh. “It would have been better if he’d just done it at the table in the Philippines. But I suppose he was old fashioned in his own way. If a man gives you his patronage in exchange for a thing, it’s only polite to show him what he’s purchased in person.”
I shiver.
“What did you pay him?”
“Power. Influence. Apparently not enough.”
Ole Beeze shrugs and starts walking in my direction. I try to back up, but Ole Beeze lifts a single finger, and I feel a shock as my limbs lock together in place. I try to struggle, but nothing happens. I don’t move. I barely breathe.
Ole Beeze draws even closer.
“The one bright side, at least, is that you killing him has returned at least some power to me. Nothing that I miss as much as you’ve tied up, but still a thing worth appreciating.”
Ole Beeze comes to a stop within arms reach of me. I still can’t move, or scream, or smack the smug fucking expression off his face.
I try and say something and realize that I can talk, though only barely.
“You. Can’t. Kill. Me.” With how much I’ve been drinking, I’m not surprised when the words come out slurred. I am surprised, however, when I realize how unsure I am. How much I fear I don’t know.
“Of course I can’t kill you.” says Ole Beeze. “But I can take what you owe me. Three years, to begin after you bring Mary home.” His eyes flick up to the ceiling, as if staring through the floor and into the bedroom where I’d laid my sister down to rest.
I feel that pressure start rising in my chest again, just as strong and ugly and as hot as it had been in the camps before. Ole Beeze was behind this, backing the men who took Mary just to get to me.
The bastard moves his hand up to me, touches my face, and begins the process of stealing my body. His touch stings, then it burns as the sensation spreads elsewhere through me. I can feel the burn of it seeping down under my skin before things change and my flesh starts growing numb.
While this happens, I feel my own anger and rage light into full flame. I know that it won’t cool down with time. It’ll be there, still burning in three years, and once I’m free, I won’t be the only one dancing in the fire it creates.
“Enjoy wearing me while you can.” I say, my voice coming out as a snarl. “Because once I get free, I’m coming for you.”
Ole Beeze does something else with his hand held off to the side and out of my line of sight. My vision starts fading, and in my last moments awake, I can see Ole Beeze smiling down at me.
“From you, little imp?” he says, as my world turns to black. “I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
END
THE BRIMSTONE CYCLE WILL CONTINUE IN …
HELLFIRE DROP
GRATITUDE, AND MORE STORIES (AGAIN)
Hey there. This is McKinney, and I just wanted to thank you, like really, really thank you, for taking a chance on me and this book. If you like what you’ve read so far then come visit the growing community at https://www.patreon.com/mckinneycantwrite, where I have still more stories, plus audio-dramas and more.
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
MORE STORIES
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
GRATITUDE, AND MORE STORIES (AGAIN)
Brimstone Hustle (Brimstone Cycle Book 1) Page 7