Blood Victory: A Burning Girl Thriller (The Burning Girl)

by Christopher Rice

Charlotte opens her mouth and points inside of it, indicating where the other end of the tube went. For a long moment, Luke stares at her, jaw tensing, nostrils flaring. She raises one hand, genuinely afraid he’s about to pump six bullets into Mattingly’s torso. The old Luke might have, and if the urge is still there, she’s wondering where Luke’s going to send it to keep from giving in to it. His new muscles are designed to act, not repress.

  Is there any training that can prepare you for this moment, being face-to-face with a human monster, a man who seems to glide placidly through the everyday world in a baseball cap, smelling of Old Spice while concealing a gallery of horrors beneath his garage, in the back of his truck, inside his mind?

  God knows, the only training she’s had has been of the on-the-job variety.

  “Search the cab, see if you can find any marked-up maps or anything,” Charley says.

  Luke stands, moves closer to her, whispers in her ear, “Didn’t surveillance already search?”

  “They did,” Cole says in her ear, and when Luke flinches, too, she realizes their boss just addressed both of them.

  Ignoring Cole, Charley tells Luke, “See if they missed anything. It’s been a busy night. Then come back here and search the rest of the truck.”

  “What are you going to do?” Luke whispers.

  “Chat,” she whispers back.

  Luke nods, gives one last look at Mattingly, as if afraid to leave them alone together. Then he departs.

  Charlotte takes a moment to breathe, a moment to recognize that it’s her feet resting on the container’s floor now and not Cyrus Mattingly’s. A moment to see where the few remaining snakes have coiled up into the corners of the compartment.

  “Let’s talk, Cyrus.”

  He says nothing.

  She’s tempted to draw the blindfold back, see if he’s screwed his eyes shut. His lips look slightly pursed, almost ready for a pout.

  “I see, so now you’re the silent one. Well, that’s fitting, isn’t it?”

  Nothing.

  Keep it verbal, she reminds herself.

  “How?” he finally asks, sounding winded.

  “How what?”

  “How did you get free?”

  “What does it matter? You think you’re going to refine your process? You’re never doing this again, Cyrus. Ever.”

  He absorbs this announcement without flinching.

  “How many?” she asks.

  Silence.

  “All women, or do you snatch a dude every now and then?”

  Silence.

  “What was supposed to happen? You know, when I tried to pull the tube out of my mouth before those things could get down it? Is that when you were gonna switch from rats to snakes?”

  “I want a lawyer,” he whispers.

  Charlotte’s startled by the sound of her own laughter. She didn’t intend to cackle like a mad witch, but that’s just how she sounds. It’s the tension release she needed, this pathetic, clichéd request from a man who has no idea what’s ensnared him. Before she thinks to stop herself, she pats him on the stomach. Too hard. He flinches and wheezes; she almost knocked the breath out of him.

  She crouches down next to his head, whispering into his ear.

  “What do you think I am? A federal agent? Dallas PD? You really think I let you keep me in that storm cellar for a day because I was trying to build a case against you?”

  Cyrus Mattingly’s only response to this is a visible tremor in his jaw and several snotty inhales through his nose.

  “What’s so damn important about keeping me quiet anyway? Why not just keep me in the back at your house? You could have had your way with me there just fine. Why take me on the road?”

  Nothing.

  “Where were you taking me, Cyrus?”

  “I want a lawyer,” he whispers again.

  His Adam’s apple bops nervously. Gently, she places one hand over it, covering his throat with fingers capable of tearing his voice box out.

  “You know what I should do, Cyrus? I should break your neck right now and spare the world your sniveling jailhouse interviews where you whine and point the finger at your mom or mean girls or porn and blame them all for the fact that you’re a human monster while some journalist sits there scribbling it all on his pad like you’re a magnificent enigma, when the truth is anyone who’s seen you the way I have knows exactly what you are. A junkie for other people’s pain who can’t control his urges.”

  “You c-can’t . . .” Cyrus stammers, reconsidering his words, or maybe trying to draw back the pathetic whiny tone with which he just spoke. “You can’t do this to me.”

  When she hears Cole’s voice say her name quietly in her ear, she realizes she’s clutching Mattingly’s throat just a little too hard. She withdraws her hand, but slowly, more interested in making Cole comfortable than Mattingly.

  “I can do things to you that you won’t be able to comprehend even as they’re making you scream. I’m something you will never understand and never have a name for, Cyrus Mattingly. And most important of all, I know what you really are, and I am not afraid. I’m not even all that impressed. The only value you have to me are your answers to my questions. So, start answering them or I will knock you sideways into hell.”

  Mattingly whispers something.

  “Louder.”

  “Not women,” he whispers.

  “You didn’t just take women? You took men, too?”

  A traditional interrogator would probably speak of Mattingly’s actions in the present tense, getting him to talk by distracting him from how screwed he is. But she just got done telling him she’s not a traditional investigator, so she’s free to use dread as a tactic. She’ll keep it verbal, per Cole’s orders, but the weapon she needs isn’t just fear; it’s Mattingly’s absolute terror.

  “They’re . . . not women after I take them.”

  “What are they?”

  His lips part, as if the answer is on the tip of his tongue. But instead of giving voice to whatever it is, he turns his head in her direction as much as he can under the strap, which isn’t much. “Seedlings,” he says with a leer. “They’re my seedlings.”

  Even though she’d like to break his collarbone with a single crushing blow, Charlotte instead crouches down, bringing her lips to his ear.

  “Seedlings gets planted,” she says quietly. “Where were you planning to plant me?”

  Luke appears next to the open divider, gives a small shake of his head to indicate he found nothing of note.

  “It’s what you are,” Mattingly whispers.

  “What?”

  “You told me I’d never come up with a name for what you are, but I’ve already got one. You’re my seedling, and you always will be because no matter how this ends, you’ll never forget what it was like to be under my command.”

  “Oh, Cyrus, you just can’t see it, can you?” she says. “Did you really think I was under your command? I put myself here, silly. I followed you. First, the Cinemark 17 in Farmers Branch. Then the AMC Valley View. Both times I had to tail you after the movie because I didn’t get your attention in time. And I was there both times you cut and run. You think I’m really going to believe you can stand up to me now when you turned tail at the first locked gate or the first big, strong man coming home at the wrong time?”

  Amazing, she thinks, that after overpowering him, tying him down, and threatening him to the extent she has, it’s the names of two suburban movie theaters that have brought him to the edge of sanity. The intermittent jaw tremor is now a steady quiver, and his mouth looks like it’s trying to form words that are being ripped backward down his throat at the last second. Maybe, as with this terrible trap, she’s simply worn him down. But she suspects it’s something else. She suspects the knowledge that he was being followed all that time has pushed him to the brink. It’s possible this is the weakness of all human monsters; they can’t accept the revelation that they were never truly alone during their moments of chosen solitude, mo
ments when they managed to convince themselves they were some of the most powerful apex predators in the world.

  “Do whatever you want to me.” His voice sounds thick with tears. “You’ll never stop the others, you fucking cunt.”

  The lurch she feels inside at these words is mirrored by Luke’s response to them. He raises the Glock in both hands instinctively before he stops himself. Their eyes meet, and she sees him nod. He heard it, too; not the slur, the word that came just before. Others.

  “What did you say?” she asks Mattingly.

  His lips are pursed again, his chest rising and falling.

  “Others? What others?”

  But her mind’s already answering the question. Other trucks just like this one, other psychos like him, only the victims at their mercy don’t have her power, her support. Each with a tortured seedling within. What can that all mean? They traffic women and then impregnate them?

  Mattingly is whispering something under his breath. She leans in, realizes he’s actually singing softly, lyrics that seem familiar, lyrics of a classic song her grandmother used to play while she cooked in the kitchen, “The Sound of Silence.” To hear them from the mouth of this monster poisons their gentle metaphors.

  Others being lectured by madmen to stay silent, others being subjected to devices like the one she managed to get free of. Others crossing night roads right this minute, unable to break free.

  “What others?” she asks again.

  But he just keeps singing softly.

  “That’s enough silence,” she says; then she brings the side of one hand down on his forearm with just enough force to snap the bone within. But the sound of the bone breaking is instantly devoured by Mattingly’s screams. They’re high, barking things that emit as much terrible surprise as pain.

  She expects Cole to start protesting in her ear, but she hears nothing except Mattingly’s screams turning to gasps turning to a string of hissing profanity between clenched teeth.

  “What others?” she asks again.

  Tears have dampened the hood’s fabric, and he’s sucking rapid breaths through his grimacing mouth, but no answer comes. She’d love to snap his bones one after the other, but that’s only proved effective when the answer she’s looking for is one or two words. This answer, she’s sure, is much more complex, and she has to hear every word of it.

  “Charley?” Cole says. “You want to fill me in on the plan here?”

  Charlotte steps past Luke through the divider, dropping her voice as she moves toward the truck’s cargo door.

  “You first,” she says. “Did you have any indication there were other trucks?”

  “None, and we still don’t.”

  “He just said there were others. Didn’t you hear him?”

  “Yes, I heard him. And we’ve got no idea what he means.”

  “I’m going to find out,” she says.

  “How?” Cole asks. “Breaking his other arm?”

  “I don’t have time for pain.”

  “What’s time got to do with it?” he asks.

  “Everything up until now has been rehearsed and practiced and coordinated. He just said I’ll never stop the others. That means he thinks it’s too late because I’m too busy here with him.”

  “What are you asking for, Charley?”

  “The thing that just broke him was telling him I’d followed him to all those movie theaters, watched him for nights in a row without him realizing it. That’s when he freaked out and slipped up and told us about the others. Pain’s not going to get us what we want out of this guy. Fear of what he doesn’t understand will.”

  She lets this sit. When Cole doesn’t rush to ask her to elaborate, she figures he’s got some sense of where she’s headed.

  Knowing her words will probably be audible to Cole’s business partners, she says, “I’m asking for permission to take his blindfold off and show him what I’m capable of.”

  “I see,” Cole says after a long pause.

  Maybe she’s imagining it because she’s been listening for it, but she’s pretty sure she can hear other voices, even some movement in the background when Cole speaks.

  “Well,” Cole finally says, “this is a question that will require consultation on my end, apparently.”

  She takes his “apparently” as a sign his business partners are listening in just as she suspected, maybe trying to get Cole’s attention even now. That might explain the scuffling sounds on his end. Are they actually present at Kansas Command?

  “I see,” she says. “Well, I’ll be waiting, and so will the others.”

  14

  Lebanon, Kansas

  Goddammit, Charley, Cole thinks, why did you have to ask? Just do it and let me clean up the mess.

  But who is he to judge? He’s as sidelined by Cyrus Mattingly’s announcement as she is. Cole’s withheld plenty of truths since this operation began; concealing knowledge there might be more trucks isn’t one of them. As soon as their target snarled the word others, Cole had to grip the back of the chair nearest him to stay standing, and he didn’t come out of his daze until Scott signaled The Consortium was already calling in.

  All that was before Charley made her request.

  How long has Noah been right next to them, literally breathing down his neck?

  “You’ll agree, of course,” he whispers.

  “It’s not my decision,” Cole answers.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Tell you what,” Cole whispers, “this time you get to watch the call. With my permission.”

  Cole studies Noah’s reaction, which tells him next to nothing about how Noah feels about this invite. He reminds himself it’s damn near impossible for Noah to have corresponded with either Stephen, Philip, or Julia during the past year. Still, Cole’s taking a risk. Inviting Noah to watch this meeting will either expose him to the bullshit The Consortium’s been subjecting Cole to for months now, or it will add another voice to the team that’s been ganging up on him.

  “Do I have permission to speak?” Noah asks.

  Depends on what you’ll speak out against, Cole thinks.

  “Nope. Stand right where you did last time and don’t say a word.”

  Cole’s more than halfway to the conference room when he looks back. Noah’s right on his heels. Once they’re inside, the not-so-good doctor makes a childish show of scooting down the wall like a Scooby-Doo character trying to escape detection by a bad guy. And, of course, he stops just short of where he stood last time. Cole gestures for him to keep moving, then feels like an idiot when he realizes they’re both being silent for no reason. He hasn’t picked up the conference call yet. Noah moves another foot or two down the wall.

  “Right there,” Cole says, confident Dr. Feelbad’s finally out of camera range.

  Noah looks to the screen, even though it’s dark; maybe because it’s the only way he can keep from shooting Cole the bird.

  With a swipe of his touch pad, Cole picks up the call. The expressions on the faces of his business partners seem remarkably unchanged from a day ago, despite what they’ve all borne witness to since. Cole’s surprised by how much this disappoints him, wonders if he’s reading too much into it. He’d figured even cold-hearted masters of the universe like Stephen and Philip would be softened some by a firsthand view of what the victims of a beast like Cyrus Mattingly endure. Maybe he hadn’t figured this so much as hoped for it, and that’s the problem. When it comes to The Consortium, he should keep his hopes to a minimum.

  “I assume everyone’s been watching the feeds,” Cole says.

  All three of them nod.

  “All right, well, before we address the question before us, let’s do a brief review of the facts as they—”

  “With all due respect,” Stephen says, “I don’t think a review is quite necessary in this moment. Bluebird’s question is just a by-product of a larger unresolved question we’ve avoided answering for far too long now, and I feel it’s my duty to point out the tim
e has come to have a serious, frank discussion about it. Hopefully, we can keep it divorced from the emotion that usually seems to bedevil this topic.”

  It chaps Cole’s ass that Stephen insists on calling Charley by her code name no matter the circumstances. Even Philip will sometimes refer to her as Ms. Rowe when they’re discussing an issue that might have a grave impact on her life, or her sanity.

  Cole’s poised to ask Stephen about this so-called larger question when the man launches into a speech that doesn’t just sound practiced; it sounds scripted.

  “We must now make a decision about what it is we actually seek to accomplish with an operation like this. Are we a vigilante organization? Are we an investigative body? Do we fancy ourselves some highly secret arm of international law enforcement? Obviously, we have the power to be any of these things, but what we are capable of and what we should be doing are sharply different things. At present it seems like we’re drifting back and forth between all the various missions I just mentioned without rhyme or reason. And this drift, if you will, seems to happen entirely at the behest of our test subject’s emotional whims.”

  Stephen Drucker, I am going to find out why you have become such a pain in my ass, and I am going to drag your nose through it while your children watch.

  Instead of voicing these thoughts, Cole says, “I hear and I understand your misgivings, Stephen. But in this particular moment, time is of the essence—”

  “No,” Stephen says. “No, I’m sorry, but I refuse to accept that. I refuse to allow this young woman to simply inject urgency into the proceedings whenever she wants to send this operation in another direction.”

  “Inject urgency?” Cole asks. “This is not a simulation, Stephen.”

  “Indeed, it isn’t,” he responds. “It’s a compulsive revenge fantasy based in her traumatic past. And it’s expensive. And risky. She’s currently traveling across one of the largest states in the US with the fruits of our research flowing through her veins.”

  “She’s in an empty field in the middle of nowhere waiting on our instructions.”

  “Gentlemen,” Julia Crispin says quickly, “this has obviously been a very intense and stressful twenty-four hours for everyone, specifically Charlotte Rowe, who has, I should say, made this request of us directly and candidly. And we should give her credit for that as we—”