AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Untried no more, for Brian had collected—and clearly used—all of these things, and many more I hadn’t even thought of. There were rows and rows of surgical instruments, of course, scalpels and saws of every possible size and shape. And then there were the kitchen implements—cutters and grinders and mashers and corkscrews and sharp little things for more delicate work. There were rows and rows of bright, gleaming, top-quality knives ranging in size from the tiniest little blade to some the size of machetes. There were straight blades and curved, needle thin, wide, and saw-toothed. It was truly a tool kit for a great artist, and I felt a quiet pride in being related to someone who was so thorough, creative, and well prepared.
“Brian…” I said, when I had finished my first quick inspection. “It’s breathtaking.”
“And finger, toe, and nose taking,” he said happily, his beaming face hanging over Ivan’s terrified and sweaty one like a pale and wicked moon. “Where shall we begin?”
“So hard to choose,” I said thoughtfully. I looked at the toolbox, thinking over all the wonderful choices I had seen, picturing a few of them, how they might unfold with a squirming squealing Ivan so snugly secured and my brother and I so wonderfully together above him—
—and as I paused a rising tide of anticipation rolled through me and seeped into all the nooks and crannies of Castle Dexter, flowing slowly down the dank and windy staircase from the ramparts to the cellars and down still more until it came at last to the very deepest sub-basement of Me, the place where Forbidden Things slumber and dream. And for the first time in far too many months I felt a quick stir of leathery wings and a dark uncoiling joy hissing its glee in the shadowy basement where the real Dexter waits in restless naptime. Yes, I heard it sing, and then it stretched in languorous glee and began to bat-wing its way up the shadowed twisty stairs, and in spite of the bright glare of the fluorescent lights It touched everything with perfect Darkness as it rolled up out of the basement and began at last to stretch its lovely wicked tendrils into every corner of daytime Dexter and out, into the wicked weary world around us until the temperature in the room began to drop just like the colors of the spectrum, and reality slid down into the cool shadows of Nighttime Truth and everything was once again bathed in a cool and dreadful twilight of so-very-soon delight that finally, at last, was about to unfold into utter long-awaited bliss. It would not solve the many problems my mundane self faced, and it would not make anything truly right outside the walls of this small chamber of glee, but that mattered less than the smallest drop of sweat now rolling from Ivan’s pale and trembling face. All that mattered, all that had any weight or reality in this world or any other was that at last, at last, we were free to be what we must and do what we must and we were now going to be it and do it.
“So hard to choose,” we said again, and even to our ears the voice was different: lower, darker, cooler, alive with the reptilian tones of the Passenger when it has taken the wheel, and Ivan’s eyes jerked sideways to see what new and terrible thing was lurking. “But certainly,” we said, “we should start with something small and refined—”
“And yet completely permanent,” Brian added. “If only for the effect.”
“Oh, yes, clearly permanent,” we said with a slow deliberate relish of a word that would come to mean so much to the contemptible wriggling mucus-producing thing in the chair. We opened the third tray down, where there was a delightful array of items for snipping and clipping, everything from manicure scissors to a small bolt cutter. With chilly glee we picked up a garden clipper, the kind used for trimming rosebushes. “Perhaps a finger or two?” we said, holding up the clipper.
“Mm, yeeesss,” Brian said reflectively. “Just the little one, I think. For now,” he added in a soothing tone.
“Of course,” we said. “For now.” And we took the instrument over to him and held it out. He reached to take it and our hands touched and our eyes met.
And for a wonderful long moment we looked at Brian and he looked back and as he did the shadowy something flickered to life in his eyes and uncoiled in its dark and potent glory and it reared up and roared at the Dark Passenger—which roared back a greeting of its own, and although we had many times encountered another Passenger in someone else and heard that challenge and given back one of our own, this was different. This was my brother, my same-self twin in twisty glee, and for the first time ever the two Passengers sent out their black fog of recognition and met in the middle, coming together in greeting and then flowing into a joining of brotherly equals, rearing up as one, with one blended voice, calling out joyfully in a sibilant chord of perfect harmony. Together…
It was Ivan who interrupted us, yanking fruitlessly at the metal bonds securing his hands and making a quick sharp clack that made us turn and look at him. He froze and looked back and he saw the two identical smiles aimed at him and he saw too what those smiles meant and another small and necessarily disposable piece of Ivan the Bomber withered and died.
“Shall we begin, brother?” we said, holding out the clippers.
“After you, brother,” Brian said with a tiny polite bow. We felt the joy of need-ending delight about to bloom and we turned to the chair and flexed the clippers once, twice, snick-snick, and Ivan watched and squirmed and made a nasty wet mucusy mewling sound that made us more eager than ever to begin, if only to wipe away the awful damp noise of his disgusting helpless flaccid weakness, and so we did it once more, snick-snick, closer, and watched his eyes bulge and his tendons stand out and his veins vibrate and it was a perfect siren symphony of pain-to-be calling us forward, onward, downward, into the chilly pain-filled promise of our mutual delight.
And so we began.
TWENTY-THREE
I had turned my phone off before our little meet-and-greet with Ivan and his friends in the parking lot. Naturally enough, I didn’t want any unexpected noises giving me away. And I had left it off during the tête-à-tête with Ivan, because quite frankly, an artist needs to focus to perform at his very best, and any sudden chirps or tweets from the infernal omnipresent machine might have broken our very beautiful concentration.
And as I stepped out of the storage unit and into the fresh air of the early hours, I was very glad I had done so. Because when I turned it on again, out of mere reflex, I saw that Deborah had called me seven times—and even as I counted, call number eight began to ring: Deborah again. Really, it seemed a bit much—I mean, persistence can be a good thing, and in her professional life it has always been a positive virtue. But in this case, it seemed very close to presumptuous and perhaps even annoying. After all, we had barely resumed speaking to one another. She had no real right to intrude on my glow.
Still, I had to remember that she had not just enjoyed a long and leisurely session of relaxing, tension-releasing playtime, as I had. And as dreamily drained and delighted as I was, I reminded myself that there had been an actual purpose to what I had done, beyond even the achievement of such a satisfying warm blush of accomplishment. I had been trying to find out where my kidnapped children were being held, and Debs was quite interested in hearing what I had learned. And I understand very well the importance of compassion and thinking of other people’s feelings—after all, I’d been faking these things my whole life, and quite well, too. Deborah was naturally very anxious—eight calls’ worth—for me to share my newfound, delightfully obtained information with her.
So in spite of feeling like I wanted to sit in relaxed contemplation and enjoy my mellow mood, I answered the phone. “Hello, Debs,” I said, and before I could add even a single syllable more, she snapped out, “What the fuck do you know about Kraunauer? It’s all over the fucking news!”
I blinked stupidly for just a second. I should have known that something like this would create a local sensation—perhaps even a national one. “Prominent defense attorney gunned down in plain sight! Film at eleven!” And I should also have anticipated Debs putting two and two together and once again reaching a sum of Dexter. But I had selfi
shly thought of nothing but the pleasant task at hand, and I was momentarily unprepared. There were many things I could have said, most of them falling somewhere between temporizing and tall-tale spinning, and I thought up a couple of quite good whoppers in those few little blinks of hesitation.
But if we were going to save the children from what sounded like a very hairy situation, we would need her help. Additionally, if Debs and I were truly going to reconcile, she should almost certainly hear some version of relative truth. She’d probably figure it out anyway—she was, after all, a detective. So instead of dancing around it, I decided I would very bluntly tell her the truth—or at least a very close first cousin of the truth. “Kraunauer told us where to find the children,” I said.
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, followed by what can only be called a stunned silence. “Jesus fuck,” she said at last.
“Yes, isn’t it?” I said.
“And then you shot him?” she said incredulously.
“He pulled a gun,” I said. “He had a very fast draw.”
“What about the two Mexican tourists who tried to help?” she demanded. “What, you shot them because they saw you?”
I very nearly laughed at that—“tourists” indeed. “Is that what they’re saying? Tourists?” I said. “I think if you pull rap sheets on the ‘tourists,’ you’ll get a more interesting picture.”
“The fuck does that mean?” she snapped.
