by Hopkin, Ben
And then Trey felt a sharp stabbing in his left arm. He looked down to see the twin ivory needles of a viper piercing the flesh of his forearm. He couldn’t identify the type of snake that was dangling off him like some sort of extra appendage. Trey had to think that wasn’t a good thing.
As his vision started to tunnel inward, Trey could see the shadowy form of his partner as Darc raced away, Janey in his arms. Snakes poured after them, refusing to let these two prey disappear into the concrete tundra.
Trey was pretty sure this was one time he wasn’t going to be chasing after his partner’s retreating back. Strangely enough, he wasn’t that bummed about it.
* * *
Rounding the corner that led from the side alley to the back of the slaughterhouse, Mala stopped abruptly. This was not right. There should be police officers back here, guarding the rear exits. But the back alley sat empty, devoid of human life.
It did not take a genius to realize that this entire operation had gone awry, but it was no more obvious than right here, right now. Something bad had gone down, and not just inside the building.
Moving to a large metal door on the back side of the abattoir, Mala looked around, hoping against hope that her growing sense of dread was all in her own mind. Maybe the cops had stepped around the corner for a smoke or something? Right. In a middle of a slaughter, they were taking a break.
She rested her ear against the door, hoping to be able to get a sense of what might be happening on the other side. It worked almost too well. The door was steel, and appeared to be hollow on the inside. The effect was similar to a drum, where the slightest vibration would be picked up and amplified.
What was going on inside sounded like her idea of the end of the world. Shrieks, thuds, hissing, crying out…it was a medley fit for All Hallows’ Eve.
The visions those sounds conjured in her head were going to drive her into madness. Every image that formed was one of terror and bloodshed, and every single one included little Janey. How could Mala have allowed this to happen? The girl never should have been within miles of this hideous place.
She pulled on the handle of the door, but it didn’t budge. Locked. Examining the door more closely, Mala could see that there was a deadbolt that went directly into the mortar of the brick wall. The very old mortar. The very old, very crumbly mortar.
Grabbing up a small length of old, rusty rebar lying in the alley, Mala started to chip away at the mortar, seeking release for the bolt that held the door in place. As much as she didn’t want to see what lay on the other side, she had to get this door open. Besides, it couldn’t be as bad as what she was already imagining, right?
She thought back to the bodies at the skydiving place. Blake’s depictions of Aristotle’s circles of hell.
No, it couldn’t be as bad. It could be far, far worse.
* * *
Darc surged into the next room, holding the girl almost as he would a football. She was tucked into the crook of his arm, her face pressed into the lapel of his sport coat.
The snakes slashed behind them, lessening Darc’s lead with every moment that passed. Their scales moving across the concrete floor created a cascade of whispering echoes, filling the air with the sound of rustling leaves. Deadly leaves that could strike them down in a single heartbeat.
The shape and outline of the vipers’ speed married itself to the glowing form that was Darc’s pace. The blankness between formed into a patch of glowing red. He was not moving fast enough. The snakes would catch them quickly if something was not done.
Darc burst through a set of swinging doors. The room he entered was another large and cavernous space filled with hanging carcasses. Darc bumped into one of them, causing it to swing back and forth wildly. As he sprinted past, the form of the hanging animal traced itself in bright lines along the borders of Darc’s inner vision. The ribs were far too close together to be beef. And they weren’t close enough for it to be pork. Exactly twelve pairs on each carcass they passed.
As he bumped into the next hanging body, Darc’s burgeoning suspicions were confirmed. The head was attached on this one, the skin removed, exposing the muscle structure underneath.
The room was filled with human corpses.
Darc pulled the girl against his chest more firmly and spoke into her one ear that pointed upward. “Keep your eyes shut. Tight.”
She nestled into him even further, her face contorted with the effort she put into keeping her eyelids closed. Darc scanned the room, looking for a solution to the glowing red problem of the reptiles’ velocity. No solutions presented themselves. The swinging door had slowed but not stopped the snakes’ pursuit. There was nowhere he could go to get away from the vipers before they came within striking range. The gap was closing.
Putting on an additional burst of speed, Darc banged into corpse after corpse, setting them swinging on their hooks. On the floor off to one side, a mallet lay, propped up against the ankle of one of the human remains. Next to it rested a meat hook, left over from the grisly task that had been performed here earlier.
Darc stopped abruptly as he found the only option for a positive resolution to their dilemma. Shifting the girl in his arms, Darc spoke with firmness, squeezing her arms for added emphasis.
“Eyes shut. Fingers in your ears.”
Approaching the nearest cadaver, Darc pushed the tiny form of the girl into its chest cavity. She winced at the wet coldness of the flesh around her but kept her eyes tightly closed, her fingers shoved as far into her outer ear canals as they could possibly go. She swung there inside the corpse, safe from the menace that stalked them along the floor.
Darc spun to scoop up the mallet and the hook, turning to face the approaching swarm of hissing serpents. There were three that had advanced ahead of the main group, apparently faster or quicker to follow than their companions.
As the first snake struck, Darc swiped the hook, catching the reptile in midair and flinging it violently off to the side of the room. The next viper took a mallet to its head, its body twitching in its sudden death throes.
But he was not fast enough to stop the third. It leapt at Darc’s ankle, sinking its fangs deep. Right into Darc’s leather boot. He lifted his leg, shaking off the wriggling mass and stomping down hard on its triangular head.
Whirling to face the rest of the horde, Darc heard a voice call from the other side of the room.
“Darc! This way!” It was Trey.
Darc ripped the girl out from her grisly shield before sprinting off toward the sound of his partner’s voice. The shapes continued to form and settle in his mind, their glowing outlines mapping out his next move. He would get to his partner’s side at almost exactly the same moment the lead snakes would catch up to him and the girl.
The only variable for which Darc could not account was his partner. His assessment was that Trey had been able to escape once the majority of the reptiles had given chase. That was relatively straightforward. But what state Trey now found himself in, Darc had no way of calculating. Even at his best, Darc’s partner was erratic. And right now Trey could not possibly be at his best. Darc could be headed for escape or an even greater threat.
“Hurry!”
Was that Mala’s voice?
With Trey’s dedication and Mala’s intelligence, the lines swirling around Darc brightened.
As he neared the location from which he had heard his partner’s call, a light filtered through the forest of corpses. It was real-world light shedding actual illumination on the scene, not the logic lines.
Emerging from the grisly trappings of the room, Darc had just enough time to take in the sight of Trey holding an exit door propped open. Mala waved them on as if cheering on an Olympic sprinter. Somehow Darc felt his muscles strengthen, his speed increase. Outside light filtering through the clouds above was nonetheless bright compared with what they were leaving behind. Darc raced through the opening and out into the alley that ran along the back of the slaughterhouse, Trey following right behi
nd.
Whipping around midstride, Trey slammed the door shut just as a serpent launched itself toward them. The door caught the snake right in its center, cutting it off two vertebrae from center. Trey leaned down close to the snake’s upper half, yelling at its head.
“That’s right, you freak of nature!”
The viper spasmed in its death throes, the head flipping up close to Trey’s face. Trey threw himself backward, almost running into Mala.
“Darc, where’s…?” Then Mala caught sight of the girl, still wrapped in Darc’s arms. “Janey!”
The girl was still covered in blood from the cadaver, and Mala was thoroughly checking her over, apparently trying to ascertain whether or not the blood was hers.
“She is unharmed.”
Trey held up his hand, palm out. “Yeah, hey. I’m fine, though. Just got electrocuted and bit by a snake, but I’m good. Don’t need any medical attention or anything.”
Tears streamed down Mala’s face as she clung to the little girl.
Darc did not understand the lacrimation. They were safe. Why cry?
Mala smoothed the girl’s hair, seeming like she wanted to speak, but most of the words came out as a sob. “Janey will not be leaving my custody again,” Mala hiccupped, choking back another sob. “She’ll be in a private room at the hospital.”
“For now,” Darc agreed. “That will be—”
“No,” Mala barked, then smoothed Janey’s hair again. “That will be how it is from now on. And any communication—I mean any communication—with her must go through me. And if I think there is even a microscopic chance it could hurt her, I won’t allow it.”
Darc understood that Mala was more than likely 62 percent responsible for his rescue and that of the girl. However, the loss of life here, which might have been prevented if the child had accompanied them, was also something that could be laid at her feet. Darc had allowed the grey to affect his decision-making tree. That could not happen again.
Mala must have sensed the direction of his thoughts. “I am posting a guard, Darc. Don’t test me.”
How could a person so accurately track Darc’s complicated thoughts yet not understand them? It made no sense. He was about to tell her that, when Trey put a hand on his arm.
“Pick your battles, man. Rule seven.”
Darc read the list in his mind. Number seven…
If you don’t need something right this second, don’t throw a hissy fit like you need it right this second. Patience, dude. The tortoise wins the race.
The last part was simply inaccurate conjecture. Darc had researched it. There were no documented cases of a tortoise’s winning any race with a hare. They were slow and cold-blooded. Even on the warmest day, their land speed did not even come close to approaching a lagomorph’s average hopping rate. Even on YouTube there was no evidence. However, Darc did understand the first part. Why engage with Mala, making her even more grey and apt to resist, when he did not need Janey at the moment?
He had Mala’s parameters. He was intelligent enough to create a work-around.
“Yes, rule seven,” Darc answered Trey.
As the doctor moved off, her charge in her arms, the girl reached out her arms toward Darc, her face twisted in apparent pain. Right before they rounded the corner to the side alleyway, Darc spotted tears rolling down her cheeks.
The tears, combined with the facial expression, led Darc to the conclusion that the girl did not want to leave. But Mala’s reaction made Darc question the validity of that desire. As much as he knew that he would need her help, the grey made him unsettled. A part of him wanted to reach out to the grey and soothe it. Odd.
Then Trey stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Darc lunged, holding his partner up at an awkward angle.
“Yeah, I might need that medical attention now,” Trey murmured up at him, before passing out completely.
* * *
Mala nearly ran toward the ambulances. There were so many, she had her pick.
What just a few minutes ago had been a barren street was now clogged with every type of emergency vehicle imaginable. Their lights strobed, the incoming fire trucks wailed. She knew it was metaphorical, but it sounded like the city was mourning the massacre that lay behind them.
But her only concern was that of Janey’s well-being.
The child was covered in blood. Apparently someone else’s, but did that really make it any better?
Mala never should have allowed them to bring her here. With this madman re-creating the nine circles of hell, how did Mala think that sitting in a police cruiser was safe? Darc was willing to put Janey at such risk. Mala no longer could.
As EMTs rushed to her side, she brushed them off. “Just get us back to the hospital.” Confused, the EMTs milled. “Now.”
Not waiting to see their reaction, Mala climbed into the rig, Janey clutched in her arms, although it wasn’t exactly a tender embrace. The girl still tried to wiggle and squirm. Trying to return to her shining knight. You know, the one that had almost gotten them all killed.
Once the EMTs closed the back door of the ambulance, all the fight left the little girl. She lay like a rag doll in Mala’s arms. Tracks from her tears were carved into her cheeks, making her look far older than she actually was. Relaxing her grip, Mala brushed some bloody strands of hair away from Janey’s face. The girl gripped onto her teddy bear, rocking in Mala’s arms.
Mala allowed Janey to self-soothe. Hell, she wished she could rock back and forth as the ambulance pulled away from the curb. Anger swelled, though. Now Mala understood the term “see red.” All she could see was Darc’s unexpressive face staring back at her.
Yet was he to blame? Really? Or was it she? Wasn’t she to blame for everything this precious girl had gone through ever since she had arrived at the hospital? The moment Janey was in her care, Mala was the one that bore the responsibility. For all of it. It was a tough pill to swallow, but she downed it without flinching.
Anger. A secondary emotion. One that was a direct result of unprocessed hurt or fear. Why was Mala angry? She was angry because she was afraid. Afraid that she had failed her fragile charge.
And she was hurt. It hurt her that Darc would prey on her fascination with this case, the puzzle the killer had laid out for them, even the tall detective himself. He had enough self-awareness that he knew of the attraction between them. Mala was certain of it. She had tangible evidence to confirm this thesis. Darc knew.
He knew, and yet he moved forward anyway. There was a certain stoicism in this that Mala found almost noble, but all it took was another glance down at the bloody tangle of Janey’s hair to turn that admiration into something else.
Logic was Darc’s God, his mistress, his siren song. Nothing else, no softness of will or heart, would ever come between him and his deductive powers.
That was it. Nothing to be afraid of any longer. She had made a mistake that was a direct result of overcompensating for past errors. Overcompensating for Baasim. “The patient knows best?” No. Not always. She had been looking for some kind of rule she could turn to whenever she wasn’t sure of what to do. But that wasn’t realistic. She needed to weigh things in the balance for every single case. No “one size fits all” rule.
And she had no cause to be hurt by Darc. She might as well be upset that the rain was starting up again and would muss up her hair. Darc was what he was. A force of nature more than a caring, feeling human being.
She would do better now. She knew what she was up against. No words from Darc, no compelling traps of logic, no appeals from a brokenhearted girl would change her mind.
From here on out, she trusted no one but herself.
* * *
Trey’s left sleeve and right pant leg were both pulled up as far as they would go. The EMT had just finished bandaging the bite on Trey’s forearm and was about to move on to his leg. Darc had grabbed a clipboard and was scribbling furiously all over some paper towels he’d stolen out of the ambulance.
“L
ooks like the snake had already emptied its venom sac,” the EMT said, slapping Trey on his good arm. Trey jumped nearly three feet, causing the EMT’s eyebrows to rise. Trey settled back onto his butt. He had come out of the fun house of terrors. He didn’t have to explain to anyone why he was a little jumpy. Although he was curious about something else.
“So, if there wasn’t any venom, why did I pass out?”
“Ummm.” The medic wouldn’t look him straight in the eye. “Extreme fear can sometimes stimulate a rapid change in blood pressure. That can cause the victim to, uh, lose consciousness.”
Great. Translation: you are a complete wuss who fainted due to extreme scaredy-pants syndrome. Awesome. One more story he would have to live down in the bullpen.
The EMT continued, “But seriously, you were lucky.”
“Yeah, lucky,” Trey said rubbing his arm. “That’s what I’d call it.”
A booming bass voice came from behind Trey. “As would I.” It was Captain Merle.
Trey spun around, causing the newly attached bandage on his leg to rip off, pulling leg hairs with it. He clamped down on a yelp. Wouldn’t do to let your boss see you cry from a light leg waxing. And where had the guy come from all of a sudden?
“Animal Control says there were fourteen different poisonous snakes in there,” the captain continued.
“Where the eff did he get them all?”
The captain removed his hat and ran his fingers through his thinning hair. “I’d love to ask him, but he’s gone.”
Wait. What? That couldn’t be right.
“What do you mean, gone?” Trey shifted, ripping the bandage again. The EMT sighed and went to grab another. This couldn’t be happening. Either someone had screwed up or there was something seriously wrong here. He looked up at his captain again, a question forming in his mind.
The captain sounded genuinely puzzled. “We have searched every square inch of the—”
“The Great Fire.” Darc spoke from where he sat on the curb, his hand still sketching out random symbols and rough figures. Honestly, did his partner know how to speak without non sequiturs?