AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That makes it sound as if you’re running a one-man bordello.”
Rusty leaned his chin in his hand, the effort of keeping his head upright obviously too much for him. “That’ll always be the dream.”
Women really did pay good money to have Rusty attack them. He rented a room above Hanley’s grocery shop and taught self-defense. It was the sole thing in the world Rusty was passionate about, and that meant Angela and Kami had been jumped at regular intervals growing up.
“What do you have now?” Kami inquired, chopping onions. “Six clients?”
“Eight, counting you guys.”
“You can’t count us,” Angela said, strolling into the kitchen. “We don’t come to your stupid classes, and we don’t pay you.”
“My parents give me a roof over my head in return for teaching their only daughter to defend herself from predators,” said Rusty. “And I teach Cambridge because she feeds me and because she’ll need these skills to get out of situations she will inevitably throw herself into. It’s all very equitable. Which reminds me, Angela, I’m a crazed drug dealer, desperate for the change in your jeans pockets. What do you do?”
“No,” Angela commanded. “Don’t!”
Rusty tackled her at the knees and Angela fell backward with a scream of rage. Kami began to fry her onions, whistling over the noise.
“So, I was looking through websites about animal sacrifice on the Internet,” Kami announced to distract herself. “Apparently it’s a feature in Satanic rituals.”
“Wow,” Rusty remarked, his voice slightly muffled. “I sure hope this conversation continues over dinner.”
“Wait,” Angela said, expertly twisting Rusty’s arm. “I thought we were dealing with kids? Are we talking twelve-year-old Satanists?” She paused. “Actually, that makes a lot of sense. I suspect those kids from the cricket club.”
Kami hadn’t really expected Angela and Rusty to take this seriously. They knew what Kami had seen, but they hadn’t seen it themselves: it wasn’t real to them.
She aired a few more thoughts while making their pasta anyway.
“It wasn’t just cruelty. It was either a ritual or staged to look like one. If it was staged, why?” Kami asked. “If it was real, people don’t perform rituals, Satanic or otherwise, for no reason. I’ve done my research. They do it for favor from the gods, for good winds, to tell the future.”
“So the answer is that they are crazy?” Angela inquired. “Shocker.”
“Don’t think about the answer, think about the question,” Kami said. “The question is—what do they want?”
Neither Rusty nor Angela had an answer. Kami didn’t have an answer herself and didn’t come up with one during dinner or her walk home alone. Angela had offered to walk her home, which was so unheard of that it made Kami laugh.
“Just take care of yourself, you hyperactive midget,” Angela had instructed, eyes narrowed like a cross cat, and sent Kami on her way with a shove.
Sorry-in-the-Vale by night was different, the small streets seeming to narrow and twist, the Georgian and Victorian houses becoming specters from horror movies. Above the town Aurimere House stood, windows bright but narrow, making the great black edifice look awake and aware. As if the house was a giant’s head, watching them all with sly eyes, and soon the giant’s hand would rise from the earth and scoop their whole town away.
Kami reached for Jared. You there?
Always, he said, and her uneasiness faded. Kami never really walked anywhere alone.
The next day was Friday. Kami felt strongly that Fridays should not be full of disappointments.
The disappointments started when their headmistress, Ms. Dollard, stopped by the newspaper office to say: “Friday also means that the entire school closes promptly, including Room 31B.”
“I’m calling it my headquarters now,” Kami said, looking around proudly.
“I’m ignoring that,” Ms. Dollard said. “And I’m shutting everything up at five sharp. Do me a favor and go out and perform one of the activities I hear the youth enjoy this Friday, like defacing public property.”
Kami was sad to be parted from her headquarters, but it struck her that the library had both the Internet and reference books.
The disappointments continued after school. Kami had arranged to meet Holly, who was supposed to bring Ash’s delinquent cousin, on the school steps. At five sharp, she was outside the school with a notepad and pen in hand. It wouldn’t take long to type out the interview later, Kami thought. She expected him to talk mainly in surly grunts.
It was one of those September days when the sunshine was mellower than summer sunshine but still warmed you. Kami was leaning against the balustrade at the bottom of the steps, basking, when she heard the doors of the school open.
Holly was on her own. She held her hands up. “I tried, boss. I did establish contact with him at lunch, had a little chat with him about our motorbikes.” She smiled. “And I think I was right about him.”
