Into the Shadows (11 page)

I was wearing only a towel and flip-flops and
on my way to the tub when I heard Sarah's echoed call from down on
the first floor. I met her at the grand staircase, where she told
me that she'd just gotten a call; two Adepts were arriving any
minute to check my progress. They also had some "mandates to alter
my lifestyle", given to them by the Doyenne. That rubbed me wrong.
If Lady Le Meur asked anything of me personally, I'd do it in an
instant. But two other hemos giving me orders, supposedly from her?
There wasn't any proof of that, and I didn't know those guys, so
fuck 'em.

It was a short while later, as I was soaking
in a warm tub, when the bathroom door opened without a knock. Evan
stood there, looking pissy and arrogant. His stove-top burns looked
better, though. I had Evan's number, so I didn't bother getting up.
He moved deferentially out of the way when another guy stepped into
the doorway. The new guy wore a shiny suit, no tie, rectangular
orange sunglasses, and had a cheesy soul patch on his chin; a
challenger for Evan's douche title.

"You were told we were coming," the new guy
said. "So what are you doing in a bath tub?"

"Uh, bathing?"

He snarled his upper lip. "You have orders
from your Doyenne. Get out of that tub."

"Actually," I said conversationally, "the
orders came from you, and I don't work for you. And my bath water
just got to the perfect temp, so I'm going to enjoy it. Unless I
hear from my Lady to do as you say, I'm going to keep doing what
she
told me to do."

Mr. Soul Patch snarled again - I guess that
was his thing. "Mr. Dean," he said low and menacing to Evan but
still staring at me, "get the minion out of that tub. I'll be
waiting downstairs." He spun and left.

I couldn't help but grin. "Yeah, Mr. Dean,
get me out of the tub." I could tell by his scowl and how his skin
got paler than usual that he was about to lose his short and fairly
impotent temper. I almost felt bad for him. "Alright, man, don't
get worked up," I said with a sigh. I started to get up, but paused
when I saw he was still standing there. "Uh, hey, I don't know what
you like sucking on besides middle-aged women, and I'd rather not
find out. So if you don't mind . . ."

Because Evan was a hemo, maybe I should have
been more respectful . . . not that he'd earned it. He was probably
one of a very few hemos I could screw with, and he did earn that.
He was glaring at me when I came out of the bathroom a minute
later. I ignored him and went to my room where one of the guards
had gotten me some extra clothes from goodwill. They didn't smell,
so I couldn't complain.

I was pulling up a pair of sweatpants when I
heard a window break. Evan, who was standing near the entryway to
my room, looked off to his left. The soul patch guy was up there in
a flash, almost literally, and stopped next to Evan. As one of the
guards was coming up the stairs, soul patch was asking what had
happened. Before he could finish his question, shit hit the
fan.

LIBERATION

Someone outside of my room and to the right
yelled, "Dominic!" with a booming, scratchy voice. The guy with the
soul patch turned his head. I saw a speeding glint of metal, and
suddenly there was a hatchet stuck in the guy's face. Evan dove
into my room. The soul patch guy - Dominic, I assumed - stood there
with an ax blade driven in up to the handle; starting at his
nostril, it cut down through his lips, gums and teeth, and into his
chin. He wobbled for a second and then dropped backward like
lumber.

The guard had just reached the top of the
stairs when another hatchet flew by. I couldn't see the guard from
my angle, but I heard him moan; hopefully not hit in the face like
Dominic. I heard Sarah scream downstairs, followed by a grunt. Evan
was getting up, and, holy shit, so was Dominic.

A man hurried past the entryway, stepping
over Dominic; all I noticed was a bald head and a thick beard.

I heard someone laugh downstairs, and a muted
conversation. I started running toward the entryway. Just then, the
attacker stepped back into view with a bloody hatchet in his hand.
Dominic had just sat up, looking dazed with an entire ax blade
lodged in his face. The bald attacker swung; I wasn't going to get
there in time.

Right as the bloody ax blade bit into the top
of Dominic's head with a '
chunk
', I leaped and caught the
bald guy in the chest with a flying kick. My hope was to send him
back and over the banister, falling to the marble stairs below.
That didn't happen. He stumbled back with good momentum and hit the
sturdy banister, but he reached out a hand, grabbed the rail, and
just stopped. I was in a crouch and watched as the bald guy
straightened up and smiled at me.

There was a moment where nobody moved, and I
got a good look at him: scuffed hiking boots, faded black jeans,
and something like a long leather pullover, only made out of deer
hide. Over the pelt, from his chin halfway down his torso, was a
thick brown beard with bands of gray in it. That's where the
relatively mundane stopped. Like I said, he was bald, and there was
a thin, ropey scar that ran from the top of his head down to his
left eye, ending on his cheek. The eye that should have been blind
and milky was bulged and completely blood red. All of his skin was
a mottled light gray. And, like I also said, he was smiling at me
with a mouthful of narrow, white teeth. I was in deep, creepy
shit.

"Damn, boy," he announced loudly, "that was a
good kick!"

I backed into my room; I didn't have as much
space in the walkway. The guard who was holding his right shoulder
was off to the left out there, and Dominic with two axes jammed in
his skull laid in front of the entryway. I glanced back to my left
and saw Evan dialing his phone in a panic, the worthless prick.

"You'd be Beck, I'd wager" the bald guy said,
and then stepped forward and pulled the hatchet out of Dominic's
face. It was a wrenching tug. The sound of metal grating against
bone was grisly.

"You'd be right," I said as I backed into the
middle of my room. "So who the fuck are you?"

"I'm Barnabus Merritt, at your service." He
smiled again, and I hoped he'd stop doing that. That big red eye,
the scar, and the dead skin were disturbing enough.

"Yeah, I've just seen the services you're
offering. No thanks."

His smile faded. "You don't understand, boy;
we're here to liberate you from your unjustified captivity. You
weren't allowed a choice. You weren't given the freedom to refuse.
The Adepts would treat you like an oppressed servant - a slave.
We've come to unfetter that chain of blood."

"You talk pretty fancy for a nightmare
mountain man. Look, I work for the Doyenne. I
choose
to work
for the Doyenne. So thanks for stopping by, but I'm not
buying."

More figures came up the stairs. Shit, I was
probably already outmanned, and then I was outnumbered. And the
hits just kept on coming.

"You only -" Barnabus began to say, but then
looked over to my left. "Put the knife down, Evan."

Two people came up behind Barnabus; he paid
them no mind. Crap, it was Pedro and one of his thugs. I thought
there was some sort of weird conspiracy going on before. I just
became sure of it. Fuck.

"Hey, long time, no see, man," Pedro said to
me with a wide grin. "How you doin'? You catch that cab?"

"There are more on the way," Evan said to
Barnabus. "Leave right now and you might make it."

"I said drop the knife, Evan. Or would you
like me to cook the right side of your face like I did the left? If
you hold still, I think I can make it match."

"You'd enjoy that, wouldn't you?" Evan
yelled; I could hear the fear in his voice. "You're nothing but a
sadist and a hypocrite, Barnabus! You speak of freedom, yet you
locked me in a room and tortured me!"

"And you almost lifted the veil in your
attempt to attack Mr. Beck in a nightclub," Barnabus retorted.
"Without intervention, you surely would have. As the current
emissary of my faction, I had every right to punish you before
sending you to the Doyenne. My people accused me of being lenient
with you."

"You were," Pedro interjected. Behind him,
his thug began kicking Dominic.

Evan shook with rage, the poor douche. "I
will not -" That's as far as he got. Barnabus had taken two quick
steps into the room and threw a punch with his whole body behind
it. The sound was like a baseball bat hitting a homer. Evan was
sent flying the length of my room and slammed into the wall. A
large dent and crumbled plaster could be seen after he slumped like
a broken toy down to the dusty hardwood floor. Yeah, I guess he
should've put the knife down.

Before I could fully turn back to face
Barnabus, Pedro was on my back. I tried to throw him off, but his
grip was like iron. He freed a hand and clamped a rag over the
lower half of my face. I immediately felt dizzy and my brain began
to swim, but I tried to pull him off me again. I saw his face out
of the corner of my eye. That wasn't Pedro who was locked onto me;
it was some sort of demon that vaguely resembled Pedro. If I had
the chance, I would have fucking freaked out. Fortunately, that's
when it all went black.

RITZ

An odd mix of smells hit my nose when I woke
up, or maybe they were the reason I did. Air freshener and the dank
smell of mold made my nostrils burn. As my senses cleared, I heard
the distant wails of a police car fading away. Pain thrummed in the
back of my head, and my stomach felt queasy. My first coherent
thought was of my Lady Le Meur.

The bed I was on had sheets and a pillow,
unlike the one at the museum. I sat up slowly so I wouldn't piss
off my headache. I was at one end of a large rectangular room.
There was a small lamp near me on a bedside table, and a lit wall
lamp next to a metal fire door at the other end. Sitting in a cheap
lawn chair near the door, that gruesome guy named Barnabus was
reading a thick hardback. He looked fairly absorbed with his book,
so I took a minute to look around the room and get my bearings.

In a near corner was a compact shower stall
that had rusty pipes and a dingy curtain. Next to it was a filthy
pink toilet. Next to the toilet was a dirty sink with a cracked
mirror above it. Between that and the bed was a dented space
heater. There were a couple plastic bath mats tossed nearby on the
cement floor; I was positive that greenish brown was not their
original color. Shower curtain aside, the set-up didn't offer any
privacy, although it made up for it by being disgusting.

The walls of the room were all concrete block
with water stains at the top. Most of the high ceiling looked
bruised and swollen. There were two windows to my left; they were
lined with thick metal bars buried into the mortar. In the middle
of the dank, dim room was an old couch with foam sticking out of
its rips. Acting as a coffee table was one of those giant cable
spools turned on its side. Against the wall to my right was an
archaic-looking TV, complete with rabbit-ear antennas. What, no
cable?

Next to where Barnabus sat were a few rolls
of cut carpet. On top of those sat a handful of shopping bags.
Without looking up, Barnabus said, "Your headache and nausea will
pass soon. We unfortunately had to give you a sedative to keep you
immobilized."

"How thoughtful," I said while rubbing the
back of my head. I gently swung my legs off the side of the bed,
noticing that I still only had sweats on. It was cold enough in the
room to see my breath. "Since we're staying at the Ritz," I said
bitterly, "how about we call room service and order lobster tails,
some champagne, and maybe some FUCKING BLANKETS."

"There's one on the couch, Mr. Beck," he
replied mildly, still looking down at his book.

"Motherfucker," I muttered while I walked
barefoot across the cold floor. I flapped the folds out of the
threadbare blanket, flopped on the couch, pulled it over me, and
glared at Barnabus with his biker beard and bloated red eye and
irritating calmness. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I
barked.

Barnabus slowly and deliberately put a coin
in his book to mark the page, set it to the side, and looked at me.
"It's what we want
for
you, Mr. Beck. Now, if you can form
any rational questions, I've been asked to answer a few of them
before I have to go."

I continued to glare at him, but finally took
a deep breath and tried to keep my temper. "Alright, fine; where am
I?"

"Somewhere safe," he answered without any
elaboration.

"Where is the Doyenne?"

Barnabus shrugged. "I imagine she's in some
elegant and serene setting, reclining on soft pillows while being
fed blood-injected grapes."

My eyes closed; that should have been me
feeding her those grapes. Barnabus was teasing me. "She'll come for
me, you know. My Lady personally chose me."

"You might have admirable skills, Mr. Beck,
but you're not unique. Le Meur will obtain other slaves to replace
you. She will not come to reclaim you, partly for the fact that she
knows less about where you are than you do. It has been
arranged."

"We'll see, we'll see," I grumbled, knowing I
was probably on my own. Barnabus seemed too calm to be bullshitting
me.

He sat forward in his lawn chair, resting his
elbows on his knees. "Mr. Beck," he said calmly, "emails were sent
from your computer to both of your employers, stating a leave of
absence. Your utility bills have been paid. Notes were slipped
under your neighbor's doors that told of some unexpected travel
plans. Your life is no secret, Mr. Beck." He paused for a second.
"Considering your compromised mindset, I doubt you'll care about
what I'm going to say, but hopefully you'll remember when your head
is clear. No small effort was made to ensure your liberation, and
to the specific details that mitigate the suspicion of your
disappearance. Someday soon, I hope you'll appreciate that
fact."