Masters of Midnight

by Michael Thomas Ford

  My hot little hillbilly has been doing a good job. All three of his attackers have split and bloody lips, but by the time I turn from my kill they’ve regrouped. The rabbit-toothed one and the fat one have grabbed Matt’s arms and are shoving him up against the brick wall of the bar.

  He’s struggling and panting. He’s bare-chested now, his leather vest torn off in the scuffle. There’s blood running down his face and welling thickly from a knife gash in his right forearm. The blond kid—face like a Sunday-school teacher—grips that hunting knife underhanded, waving it in the air for a few seconds of what seems like uncertainty before the blade lunges forward.

  Toward Matt’s belly. That warm belly I stroked our first Scotch-sodden night together on his couch. That little beer-and-doughnuts spare tire from whose thick fur I fully intend to lap semen as soon as possible.

  I’m between them in a split second. The blade pierces me just above the navel. The force of it slams me back against Matt, whose head snaps back and—I can hear the crack—connects with brick.

  I bend double for only three heartbeats, clenching my fists and gritting my teeth—yes, certainly it hurts—before raising my eyes to the knife-wielding cherub and breaking into a broad smile. He stares, losing his grip on the knife handle. His buddies, equally stunned, drop Matt, who slides unconscious onto the dirty parking lot. Thank Cernunnos, I can hear his heartbeat.

  By now I would have thought that all this noise would have summoned help from the bar, but the music inside must be far too loud. Very good. There will be no witnesses.

  We Scots are known for our fine venison dishes. We know how to dress a deer.

  Straightening up, I pull the knife from my innards and grip the cherub’s neck with my other hand. “Now keep still,” I say sweetly. “This will only hurt a minute.” I drive the blade into his midsection, jerk upward till the steel meets his sternum. He gasps once, his eyes roll back in his head, and I toss him aside. A minute’s worth of breath is all he has left.

  The fat one has soiled himself, much to my amusement, though at this point I might wish not to have such keen senses. Wrinkling my nose, I seize him by the jaw, slam his head against the brick wall. Once, twice, thrice. And now the brain pan splits, like milkweed pods in November.

  One left. The bucktoothed boy. He has one use left on this earth before the maggots have at him.

  He falls to his knees beside Matt’s prone form. Oh, what a cowardly keening. What a wringing of hands.

  With his oily hair, I lift him to his feet. “Oh Christ!” he moans.

  “There’s your Christ,” I snarl, pointing to Matt. “Another beautiful innocent the soldiers tried to crucify. Not this time.” My voice softens. “What’s your name, boy?”

  He manages “Robbie” between sobs.

  “Robbie, I want to know who told you to do this. Who encouraged you to attack two men you’ve never met before?”

  Now he’s soiled himself as well. Nasty creature.

  “I cain’t tell,” he whines. “Oh Jesus!”

  “Robbie, have you read Shakespeare? Titus Andronicus?”

  He shakes his head mutely.

  “Villains raped a lovely girl, then cut off her hands and cut out her tongue, just so she couldn’t report them. I think tonight I’ll do all that to you. Unless you tell me who sent you.”

  With one hand I lift him in the air, his feet kicking like an insect’s. I stroll with him across the alley, throw him down onto his belly, and bend to retrieve the knife from his compatriot’s entrails.

  Matt’s moaning behind me, coming to. Got to make this fast.

  “Robbie,” I purr, “ever had a big queer’s big cock up your ass? No? Well, relax. I’m not going to besmirch myself. Instead I’ll use this knife.”

  That does it. “Reverend Bates,” the kid sobs. “Reverend Bates!”

  “Full name, please. Just to banish any doubts.”

  “Rodney Bates! Preacher down in Belle. ‘Got to destroy Satan’s perverted servants,’ he said. Preached it every Sunday.”

  “And I’ll spare you more of his long-winded sermons.” I implement my promise immediately, planting one knee between his shoulder blades and drawing the knife across his windpipe.

  By the time I lift Matt into my arms, he’s regaining consciousness. “Derek?” He blinks at me confusedly. “What happened?”

  “We slaughtered them, Matt. You’re hurt, and I’m taking you home with me. Meanwhile,”—I kiss his bloody brow—“you’ve got to sleep.” And he does.

  Now to destroy as much evidence as possible. Come, I call silently into the night. Come from your dark nests in the earth. Aid me now. Aid this priest of the Lord of the Beasts.

  Nothing for a full minute. Nighttime silence pockmarked with the usual sounds of the city. A helicopter heading for the roof of a downtown hospital. A car with a bad muffler grumbling down Quarrier Street.

  Then a faint skittering, like October leaves wind-blown over side-walks. The sound thickens and thickens, and then all about me they pour, a twitching molasses, from grates and broken brick foundations and sewer drains. They swirl about my feet, seethe over the alley floor and break like waves over the scattered forms of my enemies. The boys’ white skin dims and disappears, like a moon devoured by snow clouds.

  I leave the rats to their feast. Were Matt to awake in midair, he might immediately slip back into senselessness, finding himself clamped carefully in the claws of a monstrous bat while, hundreds of feet below, the lights of the Kanawha Valley stream swiftly by and then fade away.

  By the time I reach Mount Storm, I’m almost wishing I liked skinny, hairless twinkie boys instead of bulky Leatherbears. Matt’s a talonful after the first twenty miles. I lower him gently into the dewy grass of the front lawn, then shift into human form before tearing into the farmhouse shouting for Bob.

  Those Cherokee ancestors of Bob’s knew a lot about herbal medicine, and so does he. Soon enough we’ve carried Matt up to the master bedroom and stripped him of his boots and dirty jeans. We’ve washed off the blood and grime, cleaned the cuts on his head, poulticed and bandaged the shallow knife wound on his forearm, and tucked him beneath my bear-claw quilt. Matt awakens just long enough to grumble, “Jesus, Derek, stop coddlin’ me. You remind me of my nanny,” before slipping off again.

  I light a candle in the window, change into my kilt, then sit in a rocking chair by the bed and watch Matt sleep. To the gods of war I offer up my thanks, and to the gods of healing. Over the darkness of German Valley, framed by the big front window, the Corn Moon rises, spilling benedictions over Matt’s brow. To the Queen of Heaven I add my praise, and to the Horned One, my patron deity, God of the Wild Hunt, the wild night, and the wild beauty of men.

  Matt’s snoring steadily now, and in the moonlight I bend to my knees beside the bed and kiss his bushy chin. I pull the covers back from his naked body, kiss his bandaged forearm and his many bruises. I kiss his throat, kiss the pelted swell of muscle over his heart, kiss his belly and the tip of his limp cock.

  How easily I could have lost him. As easily and as swiftly as I’d lost Angus.

  What a miracle, that a killer could find in himself so deep a capacity for love.

  I pull the quilt back over Matt’s moonlit form, then leave the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind me. I stride downstairs, turn into the living room, and, from its place above the mantelpiece, take down my claymore.

  On the front porch I sit atop the steps, one of my habitual musing places, legs spread, the usual mountain breezes tickling the hair of my inner thighs. The moonlight glints off the long blade of my claymore as I polish it with a soft cloth. The crickets are louder than ever. There’s a cool edge to the night. September’s not far away.

  I ran them through with this sword, the men who murdered Angus. Oh, how surprised they all were to see me again. How they’d blubbered and begged, before I slipped this long blade through their guts, lopped off their heads, and left them to sate the grateful ravens or feed the c
hapel fire.

  Along one edge of the sword I run a thumb. The blood wells up and I lap it off. Still as sharp as ever. More than sufficient to gut a pig.

  When the mountains fade into violet dusk, I rise, hurrying from the secret room and striding upstairs, anxious to see how Matt’s recuperating.

  “Yeeow, there it is!” Matt whoops as I stride into the lamplit bedroom. He’s propped up in bed with what appears to be an after-dinner dram of Bob’s prized peach moonshine. Sipping it from a Ball jar, for Hertha’s sake. On the floor beside the bed, there are an empty bottle of Clos du Bois merlot and empty dishes on a tray. The scents of recently gobbled blue-cheese scalloped potatoes and filet mignon fill the room. There’s a small fire going on the hearth, pushing off the chilly high-altitude air. Bob’s rocking away in the rocking chair, grinning his high-noon grin, clearly a little soused. Matt’s flushed with alcohol as well, bare-chested and bandaged, quilt pulled up to his waist, staring at me with naked lust.

  Oh yes, I realize, looking down at myself. He hasn’t seen the kilt yet. And that’s all I’m wearing.

  “Daddy, you look great!” Matt’s clearly recovering at a record pace. He pats the side of the bed eagerly.

  “Oh, yum!” He knocks back the last of the moonshine as I sit by him, then starts squeezing my biceps, brushing my beard, stroking my tartan, and burrowing one hand beneath my kilt.

  “All right, invalid. We’ll get to that later,” I smile, retrieving his exploratory fingers. “Mr. Bob, looks like you’ve been feasting the patient.”

  “Yep, and he’s been flirting with me something fierce. Glad you got back from the office when you did, or I’d have had to ravish him.” Matt and Bob exchange salacious smiles. Apparently they’ve already begun to develop a casual erotic camaraderie, that playful and free-floating desire I’ve seen so often among Leatherbears. Light years away from the clutching insecurities of monogamy.

  Fine with me. I love them both. Normally, no more possessive than they, I might pour myself some of that moonshine, sit back and watch them go at it for a while, then join in. Tonight, however, I have important details to arrange.

  “Mercy, boys! Met just last night and already you’re buddies looking to play. Later. Matt, you settle down,” I command. “You’re bruised and bandaged, remember? Time enough to get frisky later. For now, try to get some sleep, and I’ll be back soon to check on you.”

  “Yeah, yeah, Derek. Coddle away.” Matt slips obediently beneath the quilt.

  “And Bob, you come with me. I have a few questions for you.”

  Bob tweaks Matt’s right ear, clicks off the bedside lamp, then silently follows me from the room, shutting the door behind him.

  In the privacy of my downstairs study, Bob grimly hands me The Charleston Gazette. Front page headlines, of course. “Half-eaten Bodies Found in Parking Lot near Tap Room. Victims’ identities as yet unknown.”

  “Hide the newspapers from him. Try to keep him from watching the TV news. I don’t want him to know about all this yet.”

  “You mean he doesn’t . . . ?” Bob mutters amazedly.

  “No. He was either embroiled by the thick of battle or unconscious when I killed them. He doesn’t know what I am. And I need some time to tell him. He’s got to stay here where it’s safe until I finish off what threat remains. Strap him to the St. Andrew’s Cross if you have to”—Bob smacks his lips—“yeah, yeah, that’d be a chore, I know, but however you do it, keep him here.”

  Matt’s standing naked by the window when I return to the dark bedroom. In the quivering firelight I can make out wide shoulders, a few feathering wings of hair across his lats, a round and hirsute ass. He hears me enter and turns, silhouetted against the view of moonlit mountains, his limp cock swinging softly. His body is shadowed with fur, from his neck to his ankles. His shoulders, arms and chest curved with muscle.

  Theophany. The Horned God descended into human form. I want to fall to my knees with reverence and take every inch of him into my mouth. The landscape of his body, as lovely as the great dark sweep of mountains behind him: what is more deserving of worship, of praise? His is a beauty I could have lost irrevocably.

  And suddenly, reminded of how close he came to death, with a flood of relief this blessed hope hits: perhaps now I have the self-control to love him without myself becoming the instrument of his destruction.

  “Damn, Derek, you got a sweet place here.”

  “Thanks. Thought I told you to sleep,” I croak, throat tight with joy. I’m trying to memorize his nakedness, the cherished details. In the dim room, the whiteness of his bandage gleams.

  “Man, I’m fine. Cain’t sleep. I did that most of the day. Look, I gotta call work. I’m due to work at the park tomorrow. I haven’t told you this, but, well, my boss is a conservative Baptist, and he’s heard about my queer music, and, well, there ain’t any laws in West Virginia that protect gays from employment discrimination, and, hell, I cain’t miss work tomorrow. He might use it as an excuse to fire me.”

  “You’re still a little banged up, Matt. I’d like you to stay here for a few days and recuperate some more. I’ll call your boss and explain.”

  “Derek, I don’t think he’d . . .”

  “I can be very persuasive, I promise. In fact, perhaps I’ll visit him in person.” With a mental nudge, I dismiss the anxiety from his mind, just as easily as, tomorrow night, I will convince his boss that Matt is the best employee in the park and richly deserves a little time off.

  Tonight we have sweeter things to focus on. There is nothing separating us now but this hesitant silence and a few dim feet of bedroom.

  “A little, uh, more moonshine?” I ask, suddenly awkward, meeting Matt’s dark eyes.

  “Well, sure, if you’ll join me,” Matt replies with a shy smile.

  Bob has thoughtfully left the liquor on the bedside table, along with an extra sipping jar, and I pour for us. Matt’s shivering a little when I hand him his drink, as much from the coldness of the room as from the erotic tension. “Come here by the fire, Matt. You must be chilly, despite all that tasty pelt.” Snatching big throw pillows from the bed, I toss them onto the floor before the hearth, then pull the huge quilt off the bed and wrap it around his shoulders.

  We’re sitting cross-legged before the fire now, quietly sipping our moonshine, watching the chestnut oak crumble in the andirons. “Hey, big man, bet you’re cold too. Git in here,” Matt invites, opening the quilt to me. I slide over and he arranges the blanket about our bare shoulders.

  “Hell, you’re icy. Come ’ere!” He wraps one big arm around me and pulls me closer. God, his skin is glowing like a furnace. His blood is coursing like magma. The familiar spicy scent of his body wafts over me, and I nuzzle his neck through a thick veil of chestnut hair.

  “We’ve waited long enough, Matt,” I whisper, turning to him and kissing him on the mouth, softly, then deeply, savoring the fiery taste of peaches. Now my fingers are blindly fumbling through his chest hair till I find his stiff nipples. “Those are the On Buttons,” he pants, arching his big chest into my hands, and I flick the nubs with my fingernails, then work each thick pectoral muscle hard beneath my palms. By now his erection is bobbing in his lap, and the front of my kilt is tenting considerably.

  Matt’s pushing me back onto the pillows now, muttering, “Man, I’ve been achin’ to do this,” as he pulls up my kilt and his head disappears. In the wooly darkness beneath the tartan fabric, he chews my balls a little before deep-throating me. I lie back against the pillows, one hand cupping the back of his head, with the other tipping the jar of moonshine to my lips, watching the firelight joust with shadows across the broad plain of his back.

  Now I increase the pressure on the back of his head till his nose meets my pubic hair, and now he’s gagging on the length of me. I let him choke and gasp for a few seconds before I jerk him up by the hair. His red face pops out of the tartan tabernacle, gasping, eyes wide, goateed lips glistening with spit.

  “Damn, gu
y, you sure know how to treat a man,” he sighs, as I drag him up beside me before rolling on top of him and forcing his wrists to the floor above his head. Kissing him is like burying my face in a stick of butter. I enter him as deeply as the length of my tongue will allow. In between mouthfuls, he’s full of butch challenge, his wounds forgotten. “Ha! You wanna wrestle, eh? I got prizes for that in college. We’ll see who ends up on top!”

  He slips out from under me and seizes me around the waist. For ten sweaty minutes, I let him flip me around—he knows all the moves—and I’ve been slammed onto the floor in a series of tight holds before eluding the last of them, throwing him over onto his belly and locking his arms behind him in my own wrestler’s grip.

  What a struggle, the pillows flying across the hardwood floor, his ass bumping against my hard cock as he thrashes around beneath me, laughing and gasping and cussing before his struggles finally subside.

  “Goddamn, Derek, how’d you get so strong?” Matt pants. “Okay, okay, you win! Guess I’m the Boy tonight.”

  I release him, then slip a pillow beneath him and cross his wrists behind his back. “That’s the sweetest thing about fighting for top, Matt. No one really loses. Now keep your hands together.”

  “Yes, sir!” He knows the drill.

  For a few seconds I’m thinking of David, that delicious student in Edinburgh, and wishing him a long, fulfilling life, as I tug several neatly coiled lengths of cotton rope from the bottom drawer of the armoire. Matt looks up at me with bright eyes, right hand clenching his left wrist. He’s humping the pillow almost imperceptibly.

  “I like it tight,” he prompts, and I oblige, straddling his ass and roping his wrists together, careful not to disturb the bandage. Considerate Bottom, he arches his arms up, away from the sweat-moist small of his back, so I can more easily and efficiently bind him. Tugging him to his knees, I tie the ends around his belly a few times, then with more lengths I cinch his elbows together and—sacrificial aesthetic—crisscross white rope all about his upper arms and torso.