WEBCAM (17 page)

“Holy shit that is some eerie shit,” Roy said.

Tom told his partner to be quiet. “Is who dead?” he asked the person in the basement.

“Erin… eeeees…”

“Who are you?”

“Erin… eeeeeeeeeeeees.”

“I’m here to help you,” Tom said. Letting the urgency of the moment fill his courage reserves, Tom made it to the bottom of the stairs. Then he played the light around.

Concrete floor and walls. Posts with I-beams supporting the bare first floor joists. Various pipes snaking through the exposed ceiling. And in the corner—

A horribly stained blanket. Spread out in front of a large, wooden box.

The box had a hole cut in the front. Like a dog house.

Attached to the side of it was a heavy chain. It led into the box’s opening.

“We’re going to need an ambulance,” Tom said. He noted the bowls on the floor, water and dry kibble. “There’s someone down here chained up like an animal.”

Tom tried to shine his light inside the box, but whoever was inside hid in the shadows.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, taking a step closer.

“I… hurt…”

“Can you move?”

“I… hurt… so…. much….”

Tom adjusted the angle of his approach, and caught the sight of a bare leg, mottled with filth and dried blood. It quickly retracted out of the light.

The person in the box began to giggle again.

Tom hesitated. His natural desire to help and protect wrestled with primal, deeply-ingrained terror.

There is a human being inside that box,
Tom told himself.
One who needs medical attention.

So why do I think it’s going to spring out and attack me?

Yet another artifact from many an old horror film; the creature locked up in the basement, too dangerous to unleash upon an unsuspecting world.

I’m never watching another freaking horror film ever again.

“Help is coming,” Tom said, less to reassure the person in the box, and more to reassure himself. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“Erin—eeeeees… won’t… like… that.”

“Erinyes isn’t here.”

Tom stepped to the left, trying to get a better angle to see inside the box. His beam still failed to illuminate the corner where the person was hiding.

“Erin—eeeees sees everything.”

“That’s impossible,” Tom said, though he did a quick sweep of the basement to make sure no one else was there.

“Erin—eeeeees sees all. Knows all. Punishes sinners.”

Tom moved closer. All the clichés about fear were holding true. His mouth was dry. His legs were rubbery. His heart was hammering. He’d never gone sky diving, but he imagined this is what it felt like right before you jumped out of the plane.

“Do you sin… Tom?”

Tom flinched at hearing his own name. How did this person know it? Then he remembered announcing himself at the top of the stairs. Tom swallowed, then adjusted the grip on his Glock because his hands were sweating.

I’m overreacting. I have a gun. This poor bastard is chained up in a doghouse. I have nothing to be afraid of.

“We’re trying to get in,” Roy said, his voice on the phone surprising Tom and making him flinch. “This door is a mutha.”

“Roger that.”

Tom took another step toward the box.

“We all sin. We all need Penance.”

“Come out of there,” Tom said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I deserve to be hurt.”

“No one deserves this.”

“I do, Tom.”

“No, you don’t.” Tom stepped over the dog bowls and crouched down. He was only a meter away from the box.

“I’m… wicked. I’m a sinner.”

“Sins can be forgiven. God forgives sins.”

“God does.” There was another wicked giggle. “Erin—eeees… does not.”

Tom finally got the correct angle to shine his light on the person in the box.

He wished he hadn’t.

It was a naked man, but he was so emaciated the only way to tell he was male was by his patchy beard, which was bare in spots like he had mange. The chain attached to a collar around his ankle. Beneath all of the grime and dried blood, the man’s skin was covered with a crisscrossing network of wounds and scars. He sat with his back to the rear wall of the box, his legs pressed to his chest, rocking back and forth. It was horrible to look at, and impossible to look away from.

“You’re okay now,” Tom said. It was one of the biggest lies he’d ever told. Even with fifty years of intense mental therapy and physical rehabilitation, this man would never be okay.

“What year is it?” the man asked in his scratchy, high voice.

Tom told him.

The man giggled again. The laugh morphed into a keening wail—

—and then he pounced.

Tom squeezed the Glock’s trigger out of fright, but managed to pull the shot so he didn’t hit the guy.

That proved to be a mistake.

The man rushed at Tom, pushing him off-balance with surprising strength. Tom fell backward, his gun skittering off in one direction, his cell phone flying off in another, as the man straddled him and locked his hands around Tom’s neck.

Tom felt jagged, dirty fingernails dig into his skin. He’d managed to retain his hold on the Fenix, and aimed the flashlight into the man’s eyes. The close up look at his face was horrifying; half of his nose had been cut off, and so had most of his ears, making him resemble a living skull. His mouth was a red, infected cavern of missing and rotten teeth. He snarled, his breath causing Tom to gag, and he tried to push the guy off but the thin man wouldn’t budge.

But he did bite.

The few teeth he had left locked onto Tom’s forearm, breaking the flesh, digging in.

As the pressure increased on Tom’s neck, the lack of oxygen brought the stars out; motes of light that swam across Tom’s vision. Tom changed tactics, going the streetfighter route and reaching between the man’s legs.

But there was nothing to squeeze. Just scar tissue and a small nub that felt like a plastic tube.

Tom almost threw up, which would have killed him since he was presently being strangled. He managed to fight both revulsion and unconsciousness, and drew back the tactical flashlight and then struck, hard, at the man’s temple. It was enough for him to release his jaw, but not his hands. He screamed, blood and spit spraying from his lips.

“ALL SHALL BE JUDGED!”

Tom hit him again. Blood flowed freely down the side of the man’s face.

“ALL SHALL BE PUNISHED!”

Tom hit him once more, and there was a loud
CRACK!
like a walnut shell being crushed. The man’s terrible grip relaxed, and Tom sucked in a breath as his attacker slumped onto the floor.

“Erinyes will get us all…” the man whispered, his eyelids fluttering as urine arced out of his catheter and all over Tom’s legs.

That’s when Roy and the rest of the team came running down the stairs, and Tom finally deemed it safe enough to throw up.

CHAPTER 28

Though she had too many people in her cell phone address book to ever possibly remember—so many that her assistant needed an entire day to send out holiday cards—Joan didn’t really have any close friends. Joan’s criteria for being close was crying on their shoulder, and the only person she ever did that with was Tom, and it was only after something truly horrible happened.

So Trish crying on her shoulder made Joan uncomfortable. The fact that she was uncomfortable made Joan dislike that part of herself, which made her even more uncomfortable, which is the reason she didn’t have any close friends.

Trish was Joan’s go-to when she came to Chicago to visit Tom. They enjoyed eating out, shopping, seeing an occasional show. They talked about their boyfriends, and sex, and stupid things in general that men did (which covered a lot of ground). But this was the first time Trish was asking Joan for emotional support. Joan could do it; she’d talked more than one A-list actor out of quitting, but it reminded her of work.

“I don’t think I could find another man to love me,” Trish said. She’d been saying variations of that since Joan had arrived. The poor waitress hadn’t even taken their order yet, and Joan was on what felt like her second pot of mediocre coffee.

“He loves you.”

“I can’t have babies.”

“You can adopt.”

“Men want to pass on their genes. It’s a macho thing.”

“Did Roy tell you this?”

“No. But I know men. Technically, I’m a man.”

Joan stopped short of rolling her eyes. “Fine. Slap your balls on the table and show me.”

Trish laughed. “I don’t have balls. But I do have testes, Joan.”

“You have them
in your vagina
,” Joan said, loud enough to make the surrounding tables peek their way. “Look, Trish, you were upfront with Roy about this when you started dating, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And he was fine with it?”

“Yeah.”

“So even if he is cheating on you—and that’s still an
if
—why do you have to play the gender card here?”

Trish leaned over the table. “Do you know what it’s like to not feel like you belong?”

“You know the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? It’s eighteen percent women.”

“And how much of it is intersex?”

“Point made. But you asked what it feels like to not belong. I’m not African American. I’m not transgender. I don’t know what these things are like. But I do know how it feels to be dismissed because I don’t have a Y chromosome. And I know what it’s like to be objectified rather than taken seriously. I walk past the old boy’s locker room, and know they’re making deals in there, and that I’m not allowed in. There’s a long way to go before we see anything close to real equality. But you can’t use gender as your default excuse. Once you define yourself by what you’re not rather than what you are, you’re playing their game.”

Trish was nodding at her, but Joan wondered if she truly believed her own words. Because she could play the boy’s game, better than most of the boys. Joan was pretty, and she used that. She knew that she was underestimated because of her looks, and she used that too.

“Has Tom ever cheated on you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“What if he did?”

Tom? Joan couldn’t really entertain the idea. He just wasn’t that type.

“He’s a good-looking guy. A cop. Cops have groupies, you know. Girls in their twenties, looking for daddy figures. There are hookers who work cops the same way they work johns. There are also other cops. How about Eva? Tom took her to that fundraiser formal.”

“I was on a shoot and couldn’t make it. Tom asked me first if it was okay. Eva is just a friend.” Joan added. “And she’s a lesbian.”

“She’s bi.”

“Really?”

“Have you seen her picture?”

“No.” For whatever reason, Joan pictured Eva as short and pudgy.

Trish flipped through her cell pics, and found one of Tom in a tux. The woman on his arm, in a gold dress, was stunning. Like six feet tall stunning, with boobs so big they had to be fake.

“That’s Eva?”

“Yeah. Not a very good pic, though.”

Joan signaled the waitress for more coffee. “Trish… what’s your point here?”

“When I showed you her picture, did you, for just a split second, wonder if Tom slept with her?”

“No.”

“No? She looks like Sofia Vergara, but with bigger tits.”

“Well, I mean, she’s tall. But Tom has told me he likes shorter women.”

Joan wasn’t tall. And the amount of money she spent on heels was proof she’d never really been comfortable with her stature.

“What are you? Four eleven?”

“I’m five three.”

“And all guys prefer a B cup to a double D, right?”

“Okay, I get it,” Joan said. “It’s normal to doubt yourself, and then focus on your insecurities. But you need to stop dwelling on it and just ask Roy.”

“And what if he’s sleeping with someone else?”

“What if he is?”

“If Tom slept with Eva, and you learned about it, what would you do?”

Joan didn’t have to think about it. “I’d leave him.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“But you love him, right?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t someone you love deserve a second chance?”

“When did this become about me and Tom, Trish? This is about you and Roy. Just man up and call him.”

Trish raised a carefully made-up eyebrow. “Man up?”

“You’re the one bragging about your testes.”

Trish seemed confused, and then smiled her dazzling smile. She dialed Roy. Joan managed to get a coffee refill, and asked for a bagel while Trish talked. Joan purposely avoided listening, but Trish’s face morphed from confident to devastated.

“What?” Joan asked, not bothering to wait until the call was over.

“Roy’s at the hospital,” Trish said.

“Is he okay?”

“It’s Tom. He got attacked.”

CHAPTER 29

Erinyes is irritated.

The house is compromised, but he can bear the loss. The place is clean. Nothing there can lead back to him.

He doesn’t like losing his computer. His things.

The sinner in the basement.

But he has money. Erinyes can get a new place. A new computer. New things.

A new sinner to punish.

A new canvas to unleash Penance.

The timing is bad. There are still many things to do. He’ll have to step-up his schedule. That’s dangerous. These things needed to be savored, not rushed. And moving too quickly might lead to mistakes.

Erinyes checks the time. Checks his laptop. Checks the gas gauge. Does some quick calculations in his head. Takes his morning dose of Spironolactone. Then he goes in the back of the van to put on his scrubs.

Erinyes knows a lot about playing doctor.

Nurse, too.

He checks the chain on the metal barrel, making sure it’s secure, and then drives to his destination, obeying the speed limit and minding traffic signals.

Being stopped by the police would be bad. Erinyes has a medical appointment to keep.

And being late is a sin.

CHAPTER 30

Joan was pretty pissed.

“You said you were taking the day off,” she repeated for the third time.