Madman's Monster

by Michael Louis Weinberger

  Suddenly she spat the cigarette at me, and I was so shocked at the revelation that her attitude had been an act she was playing, that I didn't even flinch as the burning ember touched my cheek. It wasn't until the pain of my skin burning awakened me to what had just happened, and I swatted at the still glowing potion of the cigarette that was stuck to me searing my skin.

  Then I let go of Lei and turned slightly, to distance myself from the Madame and regain my composure, before I did something I might regret. Lei, to her credit, held her emotions in check as she kept the laser trained on the Madame’s forehead. I walked to the door and leaned against it as I took in a couple of breaths in an attempt to control the pain.

  Burns suck. If you don't already know that, ask anyone who has experienced it and you'll find they agree with me. And yet, despite the pain and aggravation, I was still more concerned with how I was going to get the woman to talk before either I, or Lei, killed her. That was when I heard the bodyguard on the other side of the door. I looked to the door handle and saw it slowly turning as if someone was trying to be very quiet before bursting into the room. I stepped to the side and positioned myself so, if the door were to suddenly open, I would be hidden in the space behind the open door.

  I turned to the Madame, "Hey," I said nonchalantly enough, but Lei reacted to something in my voice and looked concerned, "I want you to pay close attention for a moment."

  The Madame crossed her arms and sneered at me with a "Give me your best shot, Asshole." look. At that moment the bodyguard burst into the room with two more of his security people. All three of them had guns pointed at Lei.

  They never saw me as I stepped around the door. I grabbed the two new arrivals by their heads and slammed them together with a resounding crunch and they fell limply down as I shifted my weight and grabbed the main bodyguard from behind by his gun hand, wrapping my free arm around his throat. The man yelped in surprise and pain as I twisted his wrist until the small bones snapped and his gun fell free from the now useless hand.

  With another quick motion I wheeled him around and repositioned my grip, using both hands to push the man to the floor. Lei realized what was about to happen and called out to me, although I'm not sure if it was in concern, anger or envy.

  I wrenched his head back and exposed his throat before driving forward with a snarl and sinking my teeth into his neck.

  I couldn't see the Madame, but I heard her shoot up from her chair in shock at the sight of me twisting my head back and forth as my teeth ripped through flesh, gristle and tendons until I felt an explosion of wet warmth flowing into my mouth. The blood was coppery, salty and familiar. I swallowed as rapidly as I could, not wanting to waste any of the blood, while beneath me the bodyguard went into a full body, spasmodic seizure, just as some of our victims are prone to do when attacked as suddenly and ferociously as this, but I held him fast in a death grip as I finished, just as I had been trained to do over sixty years ago.

  It wasn't until he had stopped flopping around and grown weak that I released my grip and let his body slump to the ground. I purposely kept from wiping my mouth clean, holding a small mouthful of his blood, and as I turned to face the Madame I let just a little bit ooze out of the corner of the smile I gave her. She was in full panic mode now and had completely forgotten about the gun that Lei held to her head. I stood and walked toward her while motioning for Lei to attend the bodyguard. I really wasn't sure if Lei was going to save the man, or finish what I had started, but I had to play this out the rest of the way. I felt the euphoria building inside me, and I couldn't stop smiling as I slowly made my way to the Madame, who was now backing away from me as the chair slid out of her way.

  I said nothing, just pointed to the photo of the girl still lying on her desk.

  The Madame’s eyes shot to where my finger pointed, and she raised her hands in supplication.

  "Stop! Stop! I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

  Chapter 26

  He woke to the smell of something both cloying and floral in the air. His body ached terribly, but the pain he felt was a far cry from all those times he awoke strapped down to the metal frame at the camp. Just being able to stretch his legs and move his joints was a near euphoric experience that made a joyful cry escape from his throat. When he sat up he realized he was wearing different clothes. A simple shirt and pair of pants that were loose and worn, but added a basic layer of warmth and protection that was both comforting and familiar.

  It was barely a moment later when he realized he wasn't alone. An old, very old, woman was kneeling next to a small brazier in the center of the room and was stirring the coals. Smoke rose vertically up and out through a hole in the domed roof, while a teakettle burbled as the liquid inside boiled.

  The old woman lifted the teakettle by wrapping a towel around the metal handle and placed it gingerly on a bamboo tray. She then lifted a small ceramic cup and dumped the contents inside the kettle, making it hiss as the powder contacted the hot water.

  "The tea will be ready shortly," she spoke softly without turning to look at him, "in the meantime, why don't you join me?"

  He squinted his eyes at the woman, something was strange about her, and some of his instincts told him to get up and run. But somehow, a question wormed its way to his consciousness and he asked himself, “Run where?” He rose to his full height, and barely missed striking the top of his head on the ceiling, as he slowly walked to the brazier and sat across from the woman.

  She looked up from her work and smiled at him, it was a nice smile too, and there was something familiar about it that drew him to her.

  The woman reached out with one hand and gently patted his thigh, "Now, what has brought you back to me?"

  He cocked his head at her in confusion. Her words registered in his ears yet after she spoke them he still couldn't ascertain their meaning, but her mannerisms and tone of her voice told him enough to get the idea.

  He relaxed and looked around the room. The room was the inside of a small hut from the village he had happened upon, that much he instinctively knew, but why he had been clothed, cared for, and then invited to sit for tea? It would have puzzled him, if he could have cognitively formed the question.

  He looked back at the woman and inexplicably, the sight of her smiling face filled him with sorrow. He could feel something twist inside his core and he shuffled around to sit closer to the woman who, in turn, tilted her head and listened to him move closer, smiling even wider.

  Her hand searched for his and, when her gnarled fingers gently grasped his, she lifted his hand until the tips of his large fingers brushed against the corners of her eyes.

  Tears filled his eyes, although the sadness that overwhelmed him gave no enlightenment or order to his chaotic mind for any rational reason behind those tears.

  "You don't remember me, do you?" the old woman spoke softly as his fingers caressed the skin above her eyes.

  When he didn't answer the old woman sighed, "Poor child. What did they do to you?" Still he remained silent and she took his hand from her face, "Well, we all have been wronged and we all have scars, don't we?"

  Something in her words made him look down to his body and the clothes that covered him. Carefully he pulled the shirt up and over his head so that, in the ambient and plentiful light of the fire, he could see the labyrinth of angry scars covering the entire surface of his skin. The scars weren't random, but seemed to follow a meticulous pattern, as if his skin had been used as a canvas with the artist wielding a scalpel, as opposed to a paintbrush. Still, the damage wasn't of an artistic design. There was a purpose behind whatever had been done to him, although what that purpose might be, he couldn't understand.

  He put the shirt back on and stared into the old woman's face.

  "Is Pha still with you?" she asked.

  The question sent a shock through his entire being and his whole body clenched as if preparing to fend off an attack. The old woman arched an eyebrow in surprise at his reaction.

>   "Ah, I see. She is not."

  He started to shift his legs underneath him in order to stand when she placed a hand on his arm.

  "Wait, you should sit a while and we'll see about clearing the fog in your head."

  He didn't understand her and was no longer in any mood to try because all he wanted now was to get away, to hide in some dark place and never come out. His body felt as if snakes were writhing inside of him as something was desperately trying to come to the surface of his thoughts, and yet he knew that remembering could be too painful to bear.

  He gently broke her hold on him and stood. He had to get some air, get outside the hut, run… It didn't matter where as long as he could run from the pain, from the old woman, from the village, and Pha... Pha…?

  He began screaming the moment the name formulated itself with such perfect clarity in his head. It was a bloodcurdling scream of total and utter anguish and it quieted the wild background sounds of the village, and even the jungle, for as far as his scream could be heard. Only the soft crackling of the fire remained as he drove his hands into his stomach and the serpentine contractions he felt began biting him inside as if attempting to tear their way out of him. His legs gave out and he fell to his side crying and moaning without restraint, as some of the village men poked their heads through the doorway of the hut, to check on the woman inside.

  "Shoo!" She flapped the back of her hand repeatedly at the trio of men who had peered in. They had all seen the giant foreigner who was curled up in a fetal position on the ground and bawling like an infant. Finally the old woman's protests registered on them and they respectfully backed out of the doorway.

  The woman lifted the teakettle from the bamboo tray and poured its contents into a small wooden cup. He was worn out had stopped wailing at this point, but was still breathing harshly, taking abrupt ragged breaths. The woman creakily stood up and shuffled over to where he lay on the floor.

  She set the cup on the ground next to him, "Drink this," she said, "It will help your mind come back to you...although I fear there will be more pain as it helps you heal."

  She left him lying there and returned to the brazier where she replaced the kettle on top of the coals. Eventually, his abrupt breathing subsided and the memory of what had happened to him vanished to the point that he now wondered just why he was lying on the floor. He sat up, noticed the cup next to him and took it in his hand. His mouth was very dry and he could see there was liquid inside the cup, but it smelled like something other than water. He looked to the old woman who had heard him sit up and was gesturing with one hand for him to drink the cups contents.

  Something instinctively told him not to drink, but thirst won out over his apprehension as he downed the entire contents in one great swallow. The tea was barely warm by now and it had a distinct, yet not unpleasant, slightly, earthy quality that left his mouth tasting as though it was full of flower petals. He set the small cup down and tried to stand, but the room began spinning with vertigo making his eye lids heavy and impossible to keep open. He slumped to the floor as the woman stood, now with a bundle of small sticks that were smoking from one end and giving a sweet, but medicinal smell.

  She walked over to him as the smoke billowed around his head in wispy plumes of white, which that he then inhaled through his nose, and out through his mouth. The dizziness increased a bit as warmth began to spread from his head down through his neck and body until it reached his feet and even into his toes. A sense of ease spread through him and the dizzy sensation evaporated as the woman guided him into a supine position leaving him staring at the hut's thatched ceiling.

  "So, Pha is gone?" she asked his immobile form, "Strange, that her ghost has not visited me."

  Chapter 27

  After we were through with the Madame, Lei had helped me strip the bloodied clothes off my body and found suitable, yet probably temporary replacements from one of the larger and still unconscious security personnel. The clothes were ridiculously small on me and tight enough to make me look like some kind of dandy, but they were more than adequate until we could get back to the hotel.

  We had found a taxi and were headed to the hotel when Larson had called on his cell phone and gave us his location, which happened to be an enormous and well-known restaurant.

  "Larson, how is Rogers doing?"

  "He'd lost too much blood, but they've hooked him up to an I.V. and are replenishing his fluids. One of the waiters was sent out to find a couple of pints of blood that matched his type, so he should be okay once that gets in his system."

  I had moved the phone from my ear to look at it as if it weren't sending his words properly, "Did you say you sent a waiter? To get blood?"

  Larson's voice came back after a sigh, "Yeah, we're in a goddamn company meat locker."

  I had switched the phone to speaker so Lei could hear as well, and we just looked at each other in total confusion.

  Lei said to me, "You think that's a code for something?"

  Larson had heard her, "Sort of, yes. Take me off speaker phone."

  I did as he asked and said, "So where are you?"

  "We're at the Emperor's Garden Restaurant, less than a block from the hotel and it’s famous enough that the driver will know exactly where it is."

  "You took a wounded man to a restaurant?"

  Larson laughed, "That was my reaction initially as well, but it turns out that my good friend Pat has friends in low places."

  I frowned, "So he's what, a sous chef now?"

  "Nope, turns out he's got a connection to some ‘under the radar’ types."

  I turned to Lei who raised her eyebrows at me wondering what I had just heard.

  "I've seen enough movies to guess you're talking C.I.A.?"

  "You got it." I quickly put a couple of the pieces together, "Does that mean...?"

  Larson finished the thought for me, "that Zach was also working for the C.I.A.? I can't say I have any evidence of that, but it certainly would make logical sense."

  I thought for a minute, as any further enlightenment wasn't forthcoming, and then I asked him, "So how does the fact that Rogers working for the C.I.A. result in the two of you looking for medical treatment in a restaurant?"

  "Bangkok is a strange place, but this restaurant has an enormous walk-in refrigerator that they don't need. Deals were made, and now the space is a secret, emergency triage unit for the Agency's field agents."

  I really wanted to change clothes, but Larson wanted to get an eye-to-eye update and learn if we were able to find any new information. We asked the driver to make an adjustment in his route, and we made our way to the Emperor’s Garden.

  When the taxi arrived at the restaurant we made another phone call to get Larson to come out and meet us. He led us through the restaurant into the space where Rogers was lying on a cot with an IV fastened to his arm. His wound was neatly bandaged and appeared to have been well cared for, but his face and skin looked pale and clammy and he made groaning sounds despite being totally sedated.

  "Is he going to be all right?" Lei asked.

  Larson nodded, "They've already pumped the blood into him, so he should be. The only danger now is infection, but the IV bag contains a powerful antibiotic so no complications are expected." Larson turned away from his friend to look at us, "Although he's out of the fight, and I don't know what he's going to tell his C.O."

  "Truth won't work?" I asked.

  Larson looked at me, "Which part about tonight...?" his eyes suddenly comprehended the ridiculousness of my apparel, "Hey, what happened to you?"

  I tried to speak, but my own culpability, over what I had done to the Madame’s security chief, left me momentarily speechless. Fortunately, Lei came up with the best possible response and answered with, "It's complicated."

  "Oh?" Larson crossed his arms in front of himself, as if waiting for an explanation.

  I found my voice, "The important thing is that the woman spilled her guts about the girl."

  "Really?" Larson uncrosse
d his arms and looked encouraged.

  Lei chuffed, "Literally."

  Larson looked at Lei in confusion and then turned to me for clarification. I simply shrugged my shoulders and asked again about Rogers.

  Larson couldn't let it drop, "She's dead?"

  I hadn't intended to kill anyone. Hell, I had even left the bodyguard sort of alive, yet in desperate in need of a transfusion, but still alive, nonetheless. Sure the Madame may have technically been human, but she was still a monster of the worst kind, preying on little girls and using their bodies to make her, and probably many others, very rich.

  Lei just had several other ideas about her fate after the questioning was over.

  Maybe it was my years as an officer with the LAPD had mellowed me, from being one of my people's iciest Hunters, and formed me into something else, something that is more...tame? Well, whatever the case for me, Lei hadn't had that time, and my love for her makes me forget that, in the human world, she is still very much a wild thing that acts as judge, jury and executioner, and doesn't wait for months to pronounce sentence or hold back from what her instincts are telling her to do. Combine that with her sordid childhood at the hands of people very much like the Madame, and the fact that she was psychologically stimulated from having fed so recently, it should have been no surprise that her actions were terminal. Once we had gotten every drop of information out of that evil bitch, Lei was on her, and I was laughing on the surface, due to my blood-drunk state, but inside I was screaming for Lei not to do it, watching as she tore into the woman with her claw-like nails eviscerating her even before latching on to the Madame’s neck and drinking whatever blood remained. This wasn't just a feed for her, it was vengeance having roots extending back to Lei’s earliest memories as a child.