Blood and Sawdust

by Jason S Ridler

  Cindy and her son were dead. Malcolm and Milkwood were sitting in a crime scene waiting to be discovered. And Larissa was in town. Malcolm looked smug and ready for action, pleased with his plan, not knowing the hell that was awaiting them. If they weren’t careful, Milkwood knew, she’d eat the kid before his eyes. Maybe even turn him inside out—

  “Give me the number.” Milkwood called and got the address of the hotel, then said. “Let’s go. Cops might catch wind of this place if someone doesn’t like the smell soon.” He gulped, then looked back at the bathroom. Cindy, I’m so sorry I brought this down on you. And your kid. I’ll make it right, as best I can.

  They hustled out of the apartment post haste. The thought of helping Larissa burned his mind, but what kept the inferno down was the promise he made to himself.

  Next time he saw her, he’d kill her on sight.

  Malcolm smiled, proud of his plan, almost skipping down the hall.

  Sorry, kid, Milkwood thought. Money or not, she’s dead as soon as I see her.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IT WAS A RICKETY, fidgety car ride. In the passenger seat of Milkwood’s rusty yellow Rabbit, a car that seemed more suited to Troy’s Fastlane Go Kart track than a real road, Malcolm wasn’t completely sure what was going on in Milkwood’s head. He hadn’t said yes, he hadn’t said no. He’d just called the blurry number on Malcolm’s hand, found the address, and headed out. Small talk bounced off Milkwood’s grey and red poncho like pebbles off a concrete wall, so Malcolm tried to get comfortable in the cold vinyl seats that crackled with his movements, shooting glimpses at Milkwood, the poncho’s hoodie covering his big head.

  “So, how many are there?”

  “How many what?”

  “You know. Draculas.”

  Milkwood shrugged. “Counting Johnny Bad Ass USA, three. Including me.”

  “Three? That’s it? How can that be? Don’t you turn everyone into vampires or whatever? And if you guys exist, what about, I don’t know, werewolves and UFOs and shit?”

  Milkwood sucked at his teeth. “I don’t have many answers. Did as much research as I could. Ever read Montague Summers?”

  “Does he write one of the circuit dirt sheets?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then I’ve never heard of him.”

  Milkwood snorted, hands gripping the steering wheel. “You’re a real Woody Allen of the gutter. Anywho…Summers was a scholar of the supernatural. Collected accounts of witches, demons and vampires throughout Europe, translated witch hunting manuals from the dark ages, and the nutty bunny believed every word of it. But his least known work is a summation of his findings, the Malfeces Index. El Bizarro stuff, kid. Explained why we don’t see goblins and ghosts and monsters anymore. Sorry, though. No chapters on UFOs.

  “Basically, a secret war was fought around the time of the first Crusade and the conquest of Jerusalem. While all the other Christians were celebrating their conquest of the holy lands, leaving the streets filled with the blood of women and children, so don’t think of these fuckers as heroes, a predecessor organization of the Hospitallers Holy Order, known as the Brethren of the Holy Ghost, fought some supernatural foes and iced their king. The effect was to set in motion the extinction of most of the fantastical creatures I only read about in the Dungeons and Dragon’s Monster Manual and Fiend Folio.

  “The extinction of the magical badasses was slow. Summers claimed the last dregs fell by the start of the Second World War, except the fragments that were in North America, and these ones were collected by freaky collectors of the bizarre. People like Larissa’s family, the Ashmoleans, who run ancient museums that continue on today. Their founder claimed to have Babylonian armour, phoenix feathers, unicorn skeletons, you name it. But those exhibits went out of the public eye hundreds of years ago.”

  “Wait a second,” Malcolm said. “If all you guys disappeared, how the fuck did she—”

  “I was getting to that.” His tone was harder even than in the diner, when he spilled the beans about his nature. “Her family is a North American branch of the Ashmoleans. She hadn’t lied about that. I did a bit more digging from folks who continued Summers’s work. Less reliable nutcases and followers of Aleister Crowley.”

  Malcolm nodded as if he knew who the fuck these people were.

  “They claimed the NYC Ashmoleans had a vampire they kept alive and imprisoned, others said they just had a vial of his blood. He was exceptionally old, perhaps as old as the crusades. Anyway, they either had him or his blood and I think Larissa used him or it to make herself a vampire because…”

  Malcolm waited. “Because what?”

  “I don’t want you to go all sympathetic on her. She does not deserve it.” He turned, and Malcolm half expected to see red eyes glaring, but they were his natural brown. “Get me?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why’d she do it?”

  Milkwood faced the road. “I don’t even know if it’s true. Came from some goth historian who also covered ‘real’ cases of vampirism in the modern world, named Darken Severe or something else equally retarded. But according to this source, Abigail Ashmolean, Larissa’s mother, was dying of cancer. Heath Ashmolean, her father, was claimed to have some vampiric cure but refused to use it. See, if you believe this horseshit, the Ashmoleans are also protectors of the faith. They collect these things to keep us safe. And he was willing to let his wife die to keep the world from ever having vampires roaming the world again.”

  Malcolm snorted. “What a hero. I’m sure he got Husband of the Year for that one.”

  Milkwood rubbed his neck, turning a corner sharply, one handed, cutting Malcolm off. “I suspect Larissa feared going out the same way as her mother. Must have broke into the private stock, stole some vampire blood or made a deal with granddad Dracula or something and made herself the last vampire on earth. And she has been causing shit ever since. Bet her Daddy’s the one sending out thugs to get her. Bring her back to the collection, maybe.”

  “You mean he’s sending out vampires?”

  Milkwood shrugged. “Maybe something worse.”

  After watching the parade of locals in secondhand clothes and worn out faces, Malcolm cleared his throat. Confident his voice wouldn’t crack, he muttered. “Do you need to eat? Before the match, I mean.”

  Milkwood was silent.

  “You said you need to, or else.”

  “No. I’m…good. Fuck, that’s the wrong way to put it. Sorry, Cindy.” The last words were a hair above a whisper.

  Malcolm pointed at the steering wheel. “Your hands are a little pink.”

  “It’s nothing.” Milkwood dove one hand into the back seat, and came back with a pair of brown leather gloves. “But better to look good for our big reunion.”

  The Remington Plaza sat at the far end of Princess Street, on the shore of the St. Lawrence. Entering the foyer, they both looked like third-class thugs next to the warm, dark wood and glass interior, the clean floors and nice carpets with fancy designs, the plants that smelled, to Malcolm, fresh and alive compared to the acrid stink of Milkwood’s motel. Thankfully, the lobby was empty. The slickly-dressed deskman was busy chatting with his big-haired lady counterpart, working her over with his smooth, confident smile. She returned it, but her eyes were glazed and bored. Malcolm had seen that look on a dozen circuit beauties being hit on at the bar by self-proclaimed players in dime store outfits. Only thing that focused the eyes of those beauties was money, size, or celebrity. Well, not Eva, but she was a whole other universe.

  And not Lash. Her eyes had burrowed into him like hot fingers in dough. He forced himself to stop rubbing his once wounded knuckle. He pushed his hands deep in the front pockets of the dead man’s army jacket. The damn thing was surprisingly warm, even with a bloodstained hole in the back that he had wiped to a dull stain. “Do we know what floor?”

  Milkwood pulled back his hood, took off the gloves. His face was a little rusty. “Bet you all the land mines in Cambodia she’s in the Penthouse.” H
is lip curled.

  Malcolm massaged his knuckle, then stopped, but the phantom heat of Lash’s mouth on it was like a tattoo. He avoided looking at Milkwood. He just couldn’t get it…she’d done to him what most guys would have paid millions for…but against his will. Powerless. Everything these days was hard to fathom, but Malcolm had seen the hate and fear in Milkwood’s eyes as he stared at the busted TV. He just prayed he’d keep his cool and save the fury for tonight.

  Everything depended on it.

  The knuckle itched, and not like a bug bite. The sensation, somewhere between licking a battery and drinking a slushie too fast, was pulsing up his arms. “Then let’s hit the Penthouse before Mr. GQ and Miss Teen Hotel hostess at the desk call security.”

  As the golden embroidered elevator doors closed, Malcolm broke the ice. He pressed his hands deep in the front pockets of the army jacket. “So, I guess I should do the talking?”

  Milkwood stared at the gold door.

  “Sunlight burn your lips off or anything? Can you still talk about stuff besides the history of the Assholers or whoever they were?”

  “Yes.” His voice was a clear whisper, not his boisterous, thick, and nasal sound.

  “Okay, just checking. So, let me do the talking.”

  Two more floors, then they were there.

  Rich red carpet, polished wooden tables and bright plants greeted them. As they walked, silent on the carpet, Malcolm marvelled at how warm it was. Much warmer than an Emergency Room; and it smelled better, like industrial grade lemon cleaners, almost inhumanly clean and safe, like nothing bad happened here. Library carpet had the sticky aroma of dust, Comet, and the sour brine of homelessness. Lash’s world was warm and rich. You’d have to drop a few hundred or a thousand a night, more than Malcolm usually made in a month in the circuit, even at his best. They passed by rooms that carried faint smells of freshly cooked food and spices clinging to the air.

  Malcolm’s guts bristled.

  Even with a honey pot bankrolling them for the fight, he could never do more than maybe one night in a place like this. These were dream corridors. Better to save the money and keep the dream than waste the cash for a just one miserable taste that couldn’t last.

  But it sure would taste good.

  Milkwood stopped dead at room 609.

  The door was ajar; a sliver of the inside was visible. Milkwood took a deep breath, trying to keep his face straight. Malcolm smelled a whiff of her vanilla perfume. He raised his hands to push the door further when Milkwood hammered his way in so fast the world went into quicksand time.

  “Hey!” Malcolm followed.

  The room was four times bigger than Milkwood’s shitbox and about as wide as the first floor of the library, without any books, shelves, or rummies.

  Then, the stench hit. Like the dusty remains that had once filled the jacket. And something worse that hinged on his memory. A black, wet stink —

  Milkwood moved bullet quick, then stood, shaking, in the centre of the room’s red carpet, tiny fist drawn like a gunfighter. Across the floor were lumpy piles of clothes. Five in total. “They’re all dead. Have been a while. And she’s not here.”

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Malcolm said before realizing it. “Oh, shit. You weren’t going to take the job at all, were you? You lying bastard, you were just coming here to kill her?”

  Milkwood kicked the clothing around. “Does it matter? She bailed. We don’t have her money and the first round is less than an hour away.” The jagged edge in Milkwood’s voice was new, like he had a bramble stuck in his throat. “Now I’m just going to fight to keep you alive, and that’s a hell of a lot better than working for this witch. Let’s go.”

  Milkwood lumbered to the door but the damp, dark smell gripped Malcolm’s spine as he took a deep breath and tasted something sick and familiar. A wet, musky stench like a soggy ashtray the size of fishbowl.

  “Kid?”

  Malcolm kicked over another pile of clothes. In the carpet was a dark stain and in its center a rusty dart with a black feather. The smell blossomed into his guts and everything tightened. Drips of brown so dark you’d think it was black led to a bathroom with a silver handle.

  “Wait. That’s not blood,” Milkwood said. “Something rotten went down here. We have to bolt or we’ll be tagged for it. Even if there aren’t any bodies. Kid?”

  Malcolm ran at the door, terror like a drug in his veins, pounding the blood through him, but he swallowed it and kept moving. The smell grew. The door handle was ice. It would not budge.

  He rammed the door with his shoulder, a tiny wave against the reef. Again, he smacked it.

  “Kid, sorry to burst your bubble, but that door is tougher than you are.”

  But he hammered it again, a bruise on his shoulder spreading out across his skin. Then the bruise hammered it.

  He took a step back before ramming it again.

  Milkwood punched the door open; Malcolm hit nothing and sprawled on a bright, hard tile floor. Curtains gusted with cold, angry wind at the window. Above him, Milkwood’s arm was still outstretched. “Nice landing.” He offered his hand, but Malcolm scurried to his own two feet as the stench caught up with him.

  The slick, thick stink of tobacco juice stained the air. Malcolm rushed to the window, but there was nothing outside beside the triple caw of crows against the grey cityscape, the dark birds like shadowy slivers against the clouds. He looked down at the ground outside, terrified what he might see—Lash, or something as sinister but less thrilling. But there was no human stain. Just the circular driveway of the hotel. Her car wasn’t even in the parking lot.

  “Now what fresh hell is this?” Milkwood said.

  Against the tiled bathroom wall was dark lettering, slinking down the porcelain.

  Your sons were fun, but you have a date with Dizzy.

  Nauseous waves scrambled Malcolm’s gut as the words disintegrated into a long grey face with a mound of chew in his cheek, black brown lips hissing in the juices in his mouth. The same one from the dart toss that he saw tail Mom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  THE SUN HAD TURNED the sky to grape-stained clouds of cotton candy against a pink wash by the time they parked at the Iron Horse. Malcolm had said nothing, provided no answers to Milkwood’s questions about the face on the wall. Malcolm kept moving them forward, from the hotel, to the car, eyes spread wide through the passenger window, then outside and into the line of roughnecks and gore sluts waiting to jack off at tonight’s brutality.

  “Breathe,” Milkwood said. “You hold your breath when you’re upset. Not a good habit, kid. It puts a hole in your lungs when you’re fighting.”

  Malcolm inhaled slowly. “Does it look like I’m sparring?”

  “Yes. It does.”

  Malcolm crossed his arms. “I don’t see any opponent yet, Poncho head.”

  “Wouldn’t have anything to do with that liquid tobacco stain on the wall, would it?”

  “What do you care?”

  But he did. That was the rotten part. Guilt over his failed attack plan tore a strip out of him, and the horror that held the kid as he gazed on that hideous face plastered on the wall had made his betrayal sink deeper. Whoever that ugly mug belonged to was trouble. Big enough to scare Lash, and the kid.

  The kid likes to talk, Milkwood thought. Keep up the chatter. “Whatever it was took care of four or five of her brood. But it didn’t get her.”

  “How do you know? She’s probably dead.”

  “Technically—”

  “You know what I mean, and since when did you get all chatty?”

  “Easy. Just shooting the breeze to pass the time.” Malcolm turned away and faced the back of some overweight dude in a trench coat, dandruff flaking his shoulders like fresh snow. “And I am sorry we don’t have more cash to bet with.” A van pulled into the jammed parking lot and parked, then a gaggle of buzzing betters fell out the side door, chatting stats and even betting on who had won the wildcard spot. Milkwood’s n
ame wasn’t even a punch line to a bad joke. Hope these gorehounds like surprises, he thought.

  Malcolm’s jaw was clenched tight enough to crack his teeth. “You lied to me.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Same fucking difference.”

  “Fine. I’m sorry. She’s a nightmare, kid, not a dream.”

  Malcolm turned, eyes so full of rage that, for a second, Milkwood tasted a sliver of fear. “She was my honey pot. Nothing else. Now the best I can do is win my fingers back. Then back to home sweet home.” Milkwood knew what he meant. All the kid had waiting for him was that no-good, son of a bitch brother who’d dished out the hard bumps.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Malcolm turned. “Whatever.”

  The sun rolled down the sky fast, and the line grew with a loot bag of oddballs, all clamouring for blood and money. Whoever was on that wall, Milkwood thought, it’s tied to the kid, like Larissa to him. The kid was connected to that stain, whatever it was, which meant he was tied to the thing hunting Larissa.

  Tied to a thing that scared her bad enough to want Milkwood back in the fold.

  The sliver of fear grew into a rusty nail stuck in his guts. Whatever happened tonight, it was going to be vicious.

  More jackasses rolled into the parking lot and line up, ranging from bottom feeders in secondhand Dodge Ares to high rollers in fancy cars with tinted windows parked outside the joint. Malcolm nodded to a few, including a pretty, pale woman with midnight black hair and flecks of silver in a trench coat whose date was a pretty blond woman ten years her junior. Kid runs in interesting company, Milkwood thought.

  “You can take off your hood,” Malcolm said.

  “Rather not.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t think I’d be welcome.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You bitches argue more than my parents,” someone said from behind them and laughter followed.

  They marched through the rest of the line in silence, the nail in Milkwood’s guts churning with every step.