He didn’t seem to hear a word I said, still spinning in the maelstrom of emotion prompted by having his prize snatched from beneath his nose.
“You poisonous, deceitful cunt,” he said, his voice a grating snarl.
“Now, now. That’s not very angelic.”
“I do believe he is mad,” Enitan said.
Franklin breathed deeply, holding the air in his lungs until his body stopped trembling and his face settled down. When he spoke again, his voice was calmer. “Oh, I’m quite rational. It’s humanity that’s mad: with rage, with lust, with hate. The human world is a festering sore on this beautiful universe, and God’s too blinded by love to see it. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been down here, watching you wallow in your own filth, seeing how few of you deserve the chances God has given you, how few of you are capable of change? Humanity deserves to die. Once the world is destroyed, Lost Angeles will be all that remains. Soon you’ll all go to the Ammit, and this foul place will be torn down. We can start again. God will thank me.”
“After you’ve wiped out his experiment? I doubt that. We’re leaving. I’m giving the box to Laureen. And you, my friend, are screwed. Maybe Franklin isn’t your real name, but I’ll point you out on that picture on her fridge. I wonder how the Ammit likes the taste of Administrators.”
A nasty grin warped his face. “Think you have it all worked out, don’t you? You’re not going anywhere.”
“I beg to differ. I’m the one holding the gun.”
I hauled the door open and backed out alongside Enitan, which was a squeeze given his girth. Franklin stayed where he was, grin widening in a way I didn’t like one bit. The back of my neck prickled, warning me somebody was standing behind me. Before I could turn, however, cold metal pressed against the base of my skull.
“Surprise again, fucko,” said Jake.
He pulled the trigger. When I resurrected, cursing and spluttering, I was back in the chair. Blood coated the back of my shirt and wetted my wrists, which were tied to the frame of the chair. I looked at Enitan, who was in a similar state of captivity. Franklin and Jake loomed before me. I glanced at the window, hoping to spot the cavalry running to the rescue. All I saw was a junkie tottering past the streetlights.
“Looking for your backup?” said Jake. “They took a dip in the river to cool off. I expect it’ll take them a while to climb out.”
I cursed under my breath. I’d believed Danny’s boys were too good for anybody to blindside them. Wrong again. “I thought you were busy getting acquainted with Yama’s dungeons.”
“Yama likes money more than he likes inflicting pain,” Franklin said. “I felt the investment was worth it. I thought you might have something up your sleeve. You’re not very trusting, which brings me back to your earlier question. I guessed you’d work out I wasn’t a bumpkin lost in big bad Lost Angeles. Layers within layers, Kat. I let you peel away the first to make you feel good about yourself for exposing me. I had the whole angel story lined up from the start. It didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, but it was good enough to bring us here. My acting must be getting rusty. I worked with Shakespeare, you know.”
At least that explained why he’d been able to fool me at the start. But he wasn’t the only one who could act. I twisted as though trying to fight against my bonds. Really I was looking at the door to the library. It was still closed, and there hadn’t been enough time for Jake’s pals to tie us up and go inside to find Benny—which begged the question of what the hell he was doing. The gunfire should have alerted him to our predicament.
“I suppose you’re going to try to torture me into telling you where the real box is. Well, you can forget it,” I said. “I’m not telling you a thing.”
“Jake is going to torture you, but just for fun. I don’t need to ask where the box is. You see, I heard some interesting tales over the last few hours. About how you and Flo are suddenly all cozy. Did you think that would go unnoticed? I can hazard a good guess where I should look.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, putting every fiber of my being into the lie. “He simply succumbed to my plentiful charms. Hrag has it.”
“Don’t insult my intelligence. I thought I’d give you the chance to hand it over, but you were too stupid. Now I’m going there to get it.”
“You’ll never make it,” I said, giving up the pretense. “He’s got hundreds of men with guns coming out of every orifice.”
“I’ve got something better. Now that I’m so close, there’s no more need for subterfuge. I’m going up to fetch the Ammit. Guns won’t make any difference to it. Once I’ve got the box, I’ll take it upstairs and open it. And it’s all thanks to you, Kat.”
“As much as I hate to be a party pooper, there’s an obvious flaw in your plan.”
“Which is?”
“When I was a kid, a friend of mind lit a cherry bomb. Fuse was shorter than he thought. Blew his hand clean off.”
“And the point of that childhood reminiscence is?”
“Seeing as how you’re going to open the box that will swallow the world, don’t you think you might end up a touch obliterated too?”
“God will protect me,” he said serenely. “I’m doing this for him.”
“Enitan was right. You’re nuttier than a squirrel’s larder. Open the box, and you’re done.”
Franklin shrugged. “You say potato. Anyway, I don’t have time for this. I have work to do. One more thing before I go. I want you to know that I’m going to let the Ammit eat your new boyfriend.”
My body grew cold, and I pulled hard on my bonds. The blood-slicked rope gave a little but not enough for me to free my hands. “Jake, you clown,” I said urgently, “he’s going to destroy the world.”
“No skin off my nose,” Jake said. “It’s not like I’m ever going back there.”
I hopped forward on the chair, hoping to get close enough to bite the gorilla in the nuts. Jake sidestepped and clubbed his huge fist into my temple. I slumped in the chair, head reeling.
“I had a couple real shitty days thanks to you. On the bright side, I learned a few new tricks,” Jake said. “Since I’m such a generous guy, I’m going to share them with you.”
Franklin left without a backward glance. I imagined him driving back up to Avici Rise, where nobody knew what he really was. I saw him follow the Ammit into the casino, walking calmly behind as it chomped through Danny’s defenses. Then I saw it enter the bedroom and suck him out of my life forever. I yelled at the top of my lungs, through fear and frustration and as an attempt to let Benny know that now would be the ideal moment to spring into the room and spray some bullets around. Nothing happened.
Jake slipped a knife from his waistband and, eyes glinting, advanced.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” he said.
29
Jake started off slow and intimate, like a skilled lothario easing his partner into the more intense dance to come. Clearly he’d learned something from Yama’s dungeons. Any torturer worth his salt, like any accomplished lover or musician, knew how to build up: if you went hard and fast from the start, you had nowhere left to go but down. There needed to be a progression, a promise of more to come, an intensification that stressed the mind as much as the body.
He placed the tip of the knife on my cheekbone, applied enough pressure to break the skin, and drew it to the edge of my mouth. The cut stung, but the pain wasn’t much worse than a paper cut. What really ripped at me was the feeling of helplessness. I should have given the box back to Laureen and hoped she wouldn’t open it. Danny would have been safe; instead, he was about to meet the Ammit. I’d killed him once before. Now I’d done it again, only this time for keeps. The pain I could bear; that thought I could not.
“I’ve got a dilemma,” Jake said. “See, I have the big finish in mind. I’m going to pluck out your eyes, then slice off your nipples and jam them into the empty sockets. Maybe I’ll paint some pupils on them for laughs. Then, when you die in screaming agony, I’ll do it all
again. And again. When I get tired, I’ll hand you over to my pals and sit back to watch.”
“What’s your dilemma? Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out,” I said, far louder than necessary. Benny was still in the library, and I had a sneaking suspicion I knew why he hadn’t reacted. I’d forgotten to frisk him for the hip flask he habitually carried. He’d probably gotten bored—he wasn’t the reading sort—and drunk himself into a deep slumber. I needed to keep Jake talking and hope Benny was sober enough to point the shotgun in the general direction of the goons when he finally staggered out.
“I don’t know where to start,” Jake said. “You’re usually full of good ideas. What do you think?”
“I really hate being tickled.”
“Oh, I’m going to tickle you all right,” he said, holding the knife aloft.
I knew Jake’s sort. They got off on the reaction of the victim. Screams and pleas for mercy validated the power they wielded. If I bore the torture in silence, he’d get to the nasty parts faster. Plus I needed to make an unholy racket to cut through Benny’s drunken stupor.
“Please,” I shouted, making my voice as shrill as possible as he snicked off the top button of my blouse. “I’ve got a stash of cash back in the apartment. I can give it to you.”
Jake grinned. “You already pulled that trick. Won’t do you any good this time. Your backup’s in the river, remember?”
I turned my head and met Enitan’s gaze. When I flicked my gaze toward the library door, he got the message.
“Please do not torture me!” he bellowed in his deep baritone, so loud that half the assorted crap in his shop jangled in response. “I am innocent!”
“Not you too,” Jake said. “Clam up. I haven’t even threatened you.”
He sliced off another button, making sure to jam the point into the top of my left breast and flick out a chunk of flesh at the same time. I shrieked like a B-movie actress confronted by an extra in a latex monster suit, thrashing around so the chair legs thumped on the floor.
“For Christ’s sake, can you two keep it down a bit?” Jake said. “You’re going to burst my eardrums, and we haven’t even started yet.”
Enitan and I ignored him, bawling entreaties, kicking our legs, and leaping around on the seats like Mexican jumping beans. Still Benny didn’t emerge. I was beginning to panic for real, which helped add convincing gusto to my pantomime of fear. Franklin would be halfway to Avici Rise by now. Soon enough he would be on his way back to the casino, Ammit in tow. I needed to find a way out of this mess, and fast.
Jake held the knife in his left hand and, despite his claims of having learned a few new tricks, began ramming his fist into my face. My nose cracked, and fragments of broken teeth swilled around my mouth in a puddle of blood. The fluid backed up into my throat, forcing me to stop yelling to swallow it. It was too early to feel real pain, the blunt-force trauma shocking my nerve endings into numbness, but they would wake up. If Benny didn’t come out soon, that would be the least of my worries.
Jake stopped, blew on his bloodied knuckles, and transferred the knife to his business hand.
“I’ve had a bright idea,” he said. “The first time we met, you shot me. I think it’s fair if I take your trigger finger.”
He walked behind me, grabbing my hair and yanking my head as he went. Strong fingers encircled my wrist. I braced myself for what was to come. When the knife bit home, I shrieked in earnest for the first time. He sawed and jabbed and hacked, knife grating against bone. I fought my body’s instinctive response to black out, instead embracing the pain and using it tether me to the here and now. When he was done, he stood in front of me again and held the severed digit in front of my face.
“What did you say again? You hated being tickled—that was it.”
He skipped past my flailing legs and, with his back to me, grabbed hold of my right calf. I stopped fighting, conserving my energy for the appropriate moment. I was already faint, and it felt like somebody had inserted a red-hot poker through the hole where my finger had been and run it all the way up inside my arm. He pulled off my right shoe and sock and, smirking over his shoulder, tickled the sole of my foot with my finger. Somehow I didn’t feel like laughing.
I spat blood and teeth all over his face. “You’re a sick bastard.”
Jake wiped off the gore and growled deep in his throat. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
He turned around and ripped my blouse fully open, clearly planning on going straight to the nipple removal phase. I kicked at him again, but he was too close for me to get a good shot in. I racked my brain for a way to reach through the fog and spur Benny into action. As Jake sliced through my bra strap, I hit upon the one thing Benny really cared about.
“Benny!” I shouted. “Somebody’s trying to leave the bar without paying!”
Jake paused, frowning down at me. I could almost see his slow brain chuntering along, trying to figure out what I was up to. Yes, he was smart enough to have worked out that I was looking to call in assistance with my screaming but not smart enough to have checked the premises for further surprises. He must have dismissed my words as delirium, for he dropped his head again and yanked off my bra. I stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped registering anything but the feel of the cold steel on my right nipple.
The cut never came. The library door burst open, followed by the deafening blast of a shotgun. As one of the goons fell against my back, another shot boomed out. The second guy toppled past, his back a bloody mess, and cannoned off Jake. Jake reeled backward, dropping the knife. His mouth, open in comical surprise, was now the right distance for me to pull my leg back and put the boot into it with all the force I could muster. He went all the way down, sprawled on his back. I stood up, bent double with the chair glued to my ass. It was neither easy nor elegant, but I bunny-hopped over and leaped onto his head. On the second jump, he managed to grab my ankle. I lost my balance and landed heavily on my side. The knife lay within reach, but my hands were still bound. Jake’s weren’t. He grabbed it and thrust it deep into my chest. I didn’t even have the breath to shout as the blade found my heart, stilling its beat. The last thing I saw as my vision dimmed was a shotgun butt slamming down on the back of Jake’s neck.
Resurrected for the second time in the space of half an hour, I opened my eyes to see Benny weaving back and forth, trying to put new cartridges into the shotgun. He finally succeeded, snapped the gun shut, and pointed it at the head of the insensible Jake. I flexed my hands, which were now fully digited again, and ran my tongue over my reinstated teeth. Jake had done me a good turn by killing me. I didn’t intend to return the favor.
“No!” I shouted.
Benny turned his bloodshot eyes on me. “Why not?”
“If you kill him, he’ll be up again in a few minutes. Better to have him unconscious. Get the knife and cut me loose.”
Benny complied, giving me a few accidental nicks on the wrist for my trouble, and turned his attention to Enitan’s bonds. I rose shakily to my feet. The other two goons were also still alive and crawling toward the door. From the two thick trails of blood left in their wake, they weren’t going to be alive much longer. That presented a problem.
“Give me a hand,” I said.
I grabbed one of them by the legs and dragged him into the library, the task made easier by the slippery blood trail. Benny and Enitan took care of the other two. Once they were inside, I closed the door.
“Lock it,” I told Enitan. “And pile some furniture up against it to be sure.”
While they shored up the prison, I grabbed the phone. More than enough time had passed for Franklin to reach Avici Rise, fetch the Ammit, and start heading into town. Danny’s crew couldn’t stop the monster, and nor could I, but I knew a woman who could. I’d told Laureen to stay put in case I needed to get in touch, but her phone rang and rang. As I was about to dash the whole apparatus against the wall, her voice came on the line.
“Laureen,” she said.
> “I don’t have much time, so listen carefully,” I said, forcing myself to speak slowly so my vital message wouldn’t be garbled. “Your Administrator pal calls himself Franklin, but I don’t think that’s his real name. He was the one standing behind you in the picture on your fridge—the young, sensitive type.”
“The little shit,” Laureen said. “I know exactly who you mean.”
“He’s a total loon and wants to end the world. Check the Ammit kennel. He was going to take it and come for the box. He probably went out through the side gate. The box is in Flo’s private apartment at the Lucky Deal. Franklin’s going to use the Ammit to force his way in. I’m heading there to see if I can hold him up. But if he’s already got the Ammit, I need you to get down there as well, and pronto. You’re the one person who can bring the thing under control. Understand?”
“I’m on my way,” she said.
She dropped the phone instead of hanging up. Her running footsteps faded into the distance. I slung the phone back on the hook, fighting the drone of panic that threatened to drown out my thoughts.
“You, wino,” I said to Benny, “stay here with Enitan to make sure those clowns don’t get out.”
“I’m coming,” Enitan said.
“Can you shoot? Run fast? Dodge bullets?” His lips parted as if he wanted to confirm he could do all those things and more, but he shook his head. “Then you’re staying. Don’t worry, I’ll write you a book when it’s all over.”
I gathered up my gun and the weapons Jake and his cohorts had dropped and sprinted out the door. I jumped into the car and accelerated away from the shop, not even trying to avoid the startled junkie who sprang out of a pile of garbage bags and into the road. He sailed over the bonnet and spun out of sight. I didn’t even look back. I wasn’t thinking about saving the world. I was thinking about saving Danny. To do that, I’d run over anybody who got in my way.
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