by Greg Sisco
Then up the steps came Gimpy hurriedly, tripping on his feet, stumbling and shouting, tugging at the banister to claw his way to the bar.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” said Locke.
“He’s alive! He’s alive. The guy—you cut his throat, I shot him in the head. He didn’t die!”
“He didn’t die, so you shoot him again!”
“Well if one bullet in the head fucking heals, I think two might be a problem as well!”
Locke was not amused.
“Kelsey,” he called to the only whore remaining in the tavern, “Go downstairs, keep an eye on them two boys.” Then he turned to Gimpy. “And you tell me in all the clarity you can muster just what the fuck it is you’re talking about.”
Kelsey made her way down the stairs, cautiously. What a night it had been with fighting and murder and mobs and now two more dead men to keep watch on in their own cellar. She pushed open the door at the base of the stairs with her fingertips.
There were two men in chairs, as she expected. Michael lying dead and Loki upright and smiling. She shut the door behind her and looked around the room, trying to avoid eye contact.
“Hey there,” Loki said, raising his eyebrows. “How’s yer night been, little lady?”
Kelsey folded her arms and leaned back against the door. She didn’t dignify the question with an answer.
“Ya know I laid yer boss’ daughter a few hours back, ya probably heard.” He waited for a nod from her, but when she gave nothing he continued anyway. “Anyway, while we were up there doin’ our thing, I’m pretty sure I heard yer voice a couple times. I say this because I’ve seen ya through the windows a time or two and I can put voice to the face. I hear real well, ya see. Well, thing is, if I’m not mistakin’, I heard you and yer boss in a bit of a quarrel earlier about some missin’ money he thinks you took from him. That true?”
Again, she didn’t answer with anything more than a sigh.
“That’s a pretty lowdown thing to do. Whaddaya got to say for yerself?”
He waited once more.
“Ya oughtta answer me when I ask a question.”
“Fuck you, creep,” she finally said. “I’m here to watch you, not talk to you.”
“Aw Christ,” Loki whined. “Well if we’re not gonna talk, why don’t ya at least give me a blow job or somethin’? I’m bored as shit.”
Upstairs, Locke was shouting, “Get the fuck down there! Let’s get the fuck down there. I’ll show you how a trigger is pulled.”
He forced Gimpy back down the stairs at gunpoint to where the prisoners were held.
They stepped into the cellar to find Kelsey there in front of three chairs, one of them empty. The heads of Locke and Gimpy whirled around in dazes.
“What the fuck happened?” he shouted at Kelsey.
Kelsey was confused.
“Nothing. He was… alive when I came in.”
“Where’s the other one, Kelsey?!”
“Other…? You said two?”
“Oh, Jesus!”
Locke drew his gun and rushed back up the stairs.
Gimpy drew his own gun and advanced on Loki, shouting, “Where the hell is your friend?”
Loki just gave a crude smile, waiting on Gimpy’s advance.
“Where the hell is he?” Gimpy shouted again, taking a couple more steps forward so that the muzzle of his gun was pressed tightly against Loki’s right cheek. “You best tell me where yer friend is right now. I don’t know what the fuck you two is, but tonight you come into the wrong bar.”
Loki gave his car-horn laugh. He broke the rope behind his back and brought his hand to Gimpy’s, veering the gun away from his head before the trigger was pulled. The bullet struck a keg of whiskey that pissed onto the concrete. Behind the struggle, Kelsey stood frozen with fear.
Loki tore off the rest of Gimpy’s hand and bit into it like lobster. Gimpy let out a piercing scream that would have been heard next door were it not for the carefully reinforced structure of the Cherrywood cellar. Bringing his other hand back behind him, Loki snapped a piece of wood off of his wooden chair and placed it in Gimpy’s lung.
The shrieking stopped, replaced by a sickening gargle. While Loki didn’t much like taking blood from men, and felt like a queer whenever he did so, he’d lost a lot of blood having his throat cut and couldn’t resist in this moment. Placing one hand on Gimpy’s chin and the other on his shoulder, he hiked his head back and then bit into the unshaven flesh that made up his neck. His pulse was throbbing with fear and the blood sprayed out happily. Loki drank, slaying his thirst with the rich, creamy nectar as his eyes locked on Kelsey across the room.
When Gimpy’s pulse had slowed, Loki turned the fat man’s head around to face the other direction, hearing the spine in his neck crack to indicate there was no coming back for him. He loosened his grip on the dead man and Gimpy-Broken-Nose-Arm-In-Sling-Pissed-Pants-Missing-Hand-Stick-In-Lung-Gashed-Throat-Backwards-Head-Dead-As-Fuck hit the ground for the last time.
Likewise, moments after stepping into the bar of his beloved brothel, Locke stumbled on the body of Bandaged-Pinky-Bleeding-Ear-Dented-Skull-God-Knows-What-Else sitting in a chair at one of the tables. Gun in his hand, Locke spun in circles, targeting any glimpsed object that hinted at a vague similarity in shape to a human. After a moment, hearing the piercing screams from downstairs, he dismissed the idea of setting this feud straight on his own and made a bee-line for the front door.
“Barkeep!” Tyr called, seated on a barstool and pounding a mug into the bar to mimic the mannerisms of Fats—a gesture amusing only to himself. “’Ow ‘bout a fookin’ pint over ‘ere, eh?”
Locke thought of running, but his gun was already trained on Tyr, so instead he unloaded at the madman. Tyr recoiled and tossed a barstool across the room, striking Locke in the head. Before he could recover from his disorientation, Locke’s gun was across the room and Tyr was behind him, forcing him back to the stairs and down toward to the cellar.
Meanwhile, as a dead man’s body was striking the floor downstairs, Kelsey was coming to grips with the terror she was feeling. As Loki looked up at her, grimacing behind his blood-soaked beard, she turned to run for the stairwell and Loki followed.
And then came role-reversal.
Locke and Kelsey found themselves on the stairs in one another’s arms with Tyr above them and Loki below. The vampires smiled to one another. Loki stepped aside to make way for company as Tyr proceeded to walk down the stairs and the helpless killers were herded like sheep into their own cellar.
Tyr put Locke in the chair that had been his a few minutes earlier. He used a strand of the broken rope to tie Locke’s hands behind his back, making the knot just tight enough to break both his wrists. Locke took it like a man, gritting his teeth and grunting, but never turning on the waterworks. He looked at both of them in a quiet rage.
In front of him, Kelsey was in hysterics, screaming for help and drenched in tears. Loki was hugging her from behind in consolation. He swung his hips back and forth, slow dancing, gripping her belly with one hand and cupping the other over her mouth. He shushed her quietly as one might a baby and he sung sweet lullabies in her ear.
When she’d quieted down, Loki looked up at Tyr and asked the question that had been on both of their minds since they arrived here.
“What do you say about our dead friend?”
Tyr looked down at Michael, a strapping and spirited young man for certain. Though Tyr remembered nothing of his or Loki’s days as humans, how different could this boy have been from the human that either of them would have made?
“I suppose it’s your rule, Loki. You have my blessing, however you want to do this.”
Loki let go of Kelsey and took a step forward.
“I say we call him Thor.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Aimee’s cigarettes were sitting on the coffee table. Three packs. The whole house reeked of menthol from her chain-smoking, but after today Eva wouldn’t have to
endure it anymore. Having finished packing a cardboard box with what little she wished to keep, she was lying on the sofa feeling a little nauseated and maybe coming down with a fever. She took one of her roommate’s cigarettes and hoped it would help settle her stomach.
Aimee arrived home shortly, finding Eva there. She took a fourth, mostly-empty pack of menthols from her purse, thumbing one off for herself as she put the pack on top of the other three and noticed Eva smoking.
“Bitch.”
Aimee said this playfully, but there was obviously a peeved, ‘get your own fucking smokes’ vibe just beneath her voice. She lit her cigarette and pushed the sick girl’s legs from the couch, taking a seat next to her.
“I’m moving out,” Eva said casually, masking her exuberance so as not to offend.
“Aw,” Aimee faked sadness. “When?”
“Now,” Eva told her. “I just packed my stuff.” Leave me alone, bitch. I just want to get the fuck out of here and not have to look at you ever again. Is that so much to ask?
“Now? You gotta stay the night. We gotta have a party or something. A going away party.”
“Yeah,” Eva said the word sarcastically, but off of Aimee’s stupid look she said, “I don’t think I’m in the condition for a party.” Fuck you, you healthy cunt.
Aimee shook her head, taking a drag off of her cigarette.
“Dude, you don’t have to work, you get all this free money, if I was you I’d be getting drunk every night and fucking every guy I knew. I mean there’s, like, not even any consequences. If you get pregnant, it’s not like you’re gonna have the fuckin’ thing, right?”
Aimee laughed as she said this.
This time a little viciously, Eva said, “I can barely walk around. I don’t have energy for sex, and if I did it would be with my boyfriend.” You sick fucking slut. How come I'm dying and you get to live?
Aimee sighed and waved her hand as if to signify ‘Chill, I was just making a suggestion.’ There were tears in Eva’s eyes now, but Aimee didn’t know when to quit.
“Why do you have a boyfriend anyway? Like, what’s he getting out of it?”
Eva exploded, “I don’t know! Maybe love or something!” She stood up and threw the still-burning cigarette onto Aimee’s couch. “Maybe I think a little more deeply than some shallow bitch like you! Maybe he’s just a masochist and he’s letting himself get hurt, I don’t fucking know! But I do know we enjoy each other’s company and I like being around him! And I know he’s a decent enough person I can keep him around without sucking his dick every time I see him! Can you say that about any of the so-called men in your life?”
With that, Eva grabbed her box of belongings, making a mad dash for the door as Aimee scrambled for the cigarette that had fallen into her low-cut top when her mouth dropped open.
When the car pulled up, Eva had been sitting on her box of belongings for fifteen minutes or so. It wasn’t Tyr’s car, but it pulled over on the street in front of her and the large man who got out said, “You must be Eva,” with a big smile on his face.
“Yes,” she said. “Do I know you?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve been hearing about you all day, but I can’t say whether you know anything about me.”
Eva smiled and shook her head, puzzled.
“I’m Tyr’s brother. I’ve been away for a while, but I just got back into town. Tyr’s a little busy at home, but he told me I should come by and meet you.”
“Oh my God,” said Eva, standing up to hug the big man. “I’m sorry. To be honest I didn’t even realize Tyr had a brother.”
“Yeah, we haven’t talked in a while, but we’re all patched up now. I’m Jack. But people call me Loki.”
“So it’s really nice to meet you, by the way,” Eva said when they were in the car together. “Tyr can be so mysterious. It’s nice to know he came from somewhere.”
“Oh yeah,” said Loki. “He definitely came from somewhere. Tyr’s life is a really interesting story. He’s just not real open about it with anybody.”
“Right.”
Loki drove with a simpleminded smile on his face.
“I don’t really remember how to get to his place. You might have to direct me.”
“Oh, sure. You want to get on the highway right here.”
“Thanks,” Loki said with a grin. “So you look a lot healthier than I was expecting. You’re a really pretty girl.”
“Oh, thank you. They say the most important thing when you’re fighting something like this is to have something to fight for, and I’ve got Tyr.”
“Couldn’t ask for anything better than that. He’s a good man.”
“He is.”
“He’s a much better man than me,” Loki said with a laugh. “We always fought a lot growing up, because he’s so caring and I can be a bit insensitive.”
Eva smiled. “I’m sure you’re a nice guy. Anybody would feel insensitive if they had to grow up with Tyr.”
“Oh, he’s got his flaws too. You don’t know him like I do. I could tell you some Tyr stories that’d make you cringe. I won’t, but I could.”
They both laughed.
“Oh God. Older brothers are all the same.”
Loki laughed. “So how far along are you?” he asked cheerfully.
Eva looked confused.
“The cancer,” he clarified.
The smile disappeared from her face.
“Oh. Um… I don’t know. They caught it a few months ago, but it’s been there for a long time.”
“Well, I’m glad the doctors are doing a good job.”
Eva looked out the window, suddenly feeling very sad.
“They haven’t been helping. They keep telling me I’m going to die any day now. I keep telling them I’m going to keep living into next year.”
“Well, I hope the gods allow that to be,” said Loki with a consoling smile.
“No offense, but fuck the gods,” said Eva, turning to look at Loki. “I’m going to do it, and they can’t stop me.”
Loki forced back a grin, instead nodding his head understandingly.
“Have you ever died before?” he asked.
Half of Eva’s face contorted in a puzzled expression. She wondered if he was joking and prepared herself to be very offended if he was.
“What do you mean?”
“A near-life experience, some people call it. You know. When you’re heart stops beating and your eyes roll back in your head and you’re technically dead. I mean, you’re dead. No technicality. You’re dead. Have you ever been there?”
“No,” Eva said, a little shocked. “Have you?”
“Yeah. I’ve been dead. I’ve been lying on a slab of concrete without a pulse or a thought in my head. It’s been a long time since, but I’ve been there.”
“Oh my God,” said Eva, turning back to the window. She had to force herself to ask the next question. “What’s it like?”
“Dying?” asked Loki.
“Being dead. What’s being dead like?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
His eyes jerked open. He was coming to from a nightmare but without the transition into reality that usually followed. No comfort settled in to present the feeling of familiarity and it wasn’t so much a dream or any past circumstance that frightened him. It was this moment. The present. Some part of his brain meant to trigger upon his return to consciousness was failing and he now existed without grasping what existence was. There was no past and no future. He was no one. Just an entity in a cold room.
He tried to move his hands but they were stuck behind his back, tethered somehow. The room presented no familiarity, but this was unsurprising as his own body presented little familiarity and none of the smells, nor sounds, nor flavors of the air rang true of anything he’d smelled or heard or tasted before. Whatever and whoever he had once been, he was something else now.
To his right there was a vaguely familiar man, strapped to a chair like he was and staring at him wide-eyed. Perhaps he was not fa
miliar at all. Perhaps they’d never seen one another before, but the man’s face triggered emotion. A strong dislike seemed to boil up from nowhere.
There was a tearing pain in his chest and he looked down to see a knife buried there. A sense of terror leapt up in his stomach as it occurred to him maybe this was death.
But wait. Death. Death was familiar.
The blade was jerked out of him and he watched his blood spill onto his clothing. As he observed the wound and felt the blood pouring out of him he realized he had no pulse. Instead he felt a flow, an unfamiliar and constant flow of blood through his body. He followed the knife up with his eyes and looked into the face of a large man standing in front of him.
But it wasn’t a man. Not in the sense the injured animal in the chair next to his was a man. This tall figure was something else. A god? A colleague? There was a certain familiarity in his face, unlike the one he felt for the thing in the chair. His memory wasn’t working but instinct told him he had met the large man before.
“Thor?” said the large man.
What did this word mean? He was unsure whether he’d ever heard it before. Was the large man talking to him? He brought up words of his own that came out naturally, perhaps having been used so many times before that they were triggered habitually without memory.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“I’m Loki,” the large man told him. “That’s Tyr.” He indicated a tall, slender creature of the same godly stature standing in the corner of the room and grasping tightly to a voluptuous maiden. “You’re Thor. You’re one of us.”
One of them. What were they?
“Try to breathe,” said Tyr from where he was standing. “We don’t have to breathe but it’s important to keep up the illusion. It should be easy for you now. If you stop it will become hard to do it on command.”
Thor focused on his breathing. Why didn’t he have to breathe? What did it mean?
“Why am I trapped?” he asked, beaten down hard enough by his confusion to be in control of his distress.