Wrath James White and Maurice Broaddus (9 page)

The living room wasn’t what Samuel expected to see from his brother’s place, every bit the enigma Samson had become. Clean lines. Everything meticulously in its place. The pile of coasters neatly stacked on the corner of the coffee table. Rows of alphabetized CDs alongside a shelf of books arranged in descending size. The incomplete set of samurai swords. The sole item warming the sterile feel of the room was the framed photo on the mantle. Samuel picked it up, noting that not a speck of dust rested on neither the mantle nor picture. His mind drifted to the story of Moses.

People knew the burning bush Moses. The “let my people go” Moses. The parting the Red Sea Moses. The Ten Commandments Moses. They forgot the “I’ve sinned and can’t go on” Moses. For forty years, he had wandered the desert alongside the Israelites, listening to their grumbling and complaining. Though the Lord had provided for them at every turn, sending manna and quail from heaven for food, leading them, providing signs for them, still they murmured. Until one day, Moses snapped. Slamming his staff into rocks, he summoned water. However, the act dishonored God, demonstrated a lack of faith, and for that, he was not allowed to lead them into the Promised Land. At the end, though, Moses charged his people with a message of hope. Though disappointed, he had come to accept God’s judgment.

Samuel longed for that peace, then wondered who was he to think that he deserved peace.

He sat on the couch, imagining what life would be like if he had made different choices. Stretching out his arms, he sank into its embrace, a knot of jealousy working itself in his belly. To be Samson. To have women at his beck and call. To have “the life.” The pangs of envy gave way to something else. He barely noticed it at first, like a slight breeze on a hot day. He sensed that something was off. That he wasn’t alone.

All about him, something powerful and old poisoned the air, perhaps toying with his mind. The coffee table suddenly pulled back. The lines of the room canted to odd angles, as if the veil of reality were being tugged back. His ears filled with the roar of ocean waves crashing into rocks. He studied the couch. The surface was clean, but beneath, the stains remained. Something bad had happened here. Something…defiling. The couch bled; life sprayed from it as if from a severed artery. His soul shriveled against the gnawing that threatened to overwhelm him. An ancient hunger demanding more. Never satisfied, all consuming, a shadow devouring his very being. The roar in his ears turned to laughter. Deep, mocking laughter.

And the blood. On his hands, on his clothes, in his mouth. His stomach lurched. Samuel made a mad dash toward the bathroom, diving for the toilet before spilling his meal into the porcelain. He staggered back to the couch. It seemed ordinary enough now, and he prayed that no one would show him anything different. He reached for a mint from the bowl of candy that sat on the end table when he noticed the book of matches.

Requiem.

20

Jacque’s soul crawled beneath Samson’s skin, worming its way into his muscles and vascular system, pumping through his veins into his heart and invading the thin capillaries of his brain. As he walked the dark streets on his way to the nightclub, he could feel it working deeper and deeper until it invaded every cell. This was the sensation he had expected to feel with Tara’s soul, this marrying of his flesh and spirit to hers, but he had felt nothing. With Jacque, the man’s soul had become a part of him until, at some subatomic level, they were joined.

Samson walked faster, eager to get to the club. His adrenaline was racing. Sweat beaded on his skin as he nearly jogged the remaining blocks to Requiem.

A cold chill raised goose bumps on his neck and arms, causing Samson to stop suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk. As if he had walked through a frozen spider web, and now it was all over him.

Samson began to tremble as he felt the presence of another soul. Tara. He could feel her fly to him as if she had been lingering around all along waiting for someone to show her the way inside. She followed Jacque, letting him lead the way. Tara’s whimsical spirit shrieked in horror as it coated his skin and began to slowly seep into him.

“Welcome home, Tara.”

Samson started walking again, though his flesh felt bloated as he neared the club. He was certain that everyone he passed on the street could see the other entities within him, rippling beneath the surface of his skin like cats fighting beneath a blanket. Gradually, the riot of souls quieted down as they submerged deeper and deeper, migrating from his flesh into his own immortal spirit. Samson smiled as their warmth filled him, replacing the chill in his bones with their vibrant energy, like warm brandy on a cold winter night. This was not an unpleasant feeling at all.

With only two souls, Samson knew his blood covenant was far from complete. He needed more. If God was watching, He would be coming for him soon. Coming to claim what was His. If Jacque was telling the truth, someone else might be coming as well. At any rate, Samson knew he didn’t have much more time. He also knew that getting women or even men to sign the contract would be a slow process. It would be quicker to just rip the souls right out of them. But then they wouldn’t technically belong to him and God might simply take them back. The contracts had to be signed for this to work.

The line to the club stretched all the way to the end of the block. The excitement of those waiting to get inside electrified the air. Each and every one of them would be affecting airs of cool aloofness once they were let in, despite the annoying puppy-dog enthusiasm they currently displayed.

At the front of the line two large bouncers in black turtlenecks and leather jackets manned the door. A thin wannabe model with platinum blonde hair wore a baby tee with the words “Porn Star” emblazoned across the front of it, a miniskirt, white tights, red hip boots and a white faux fur coat. Another bouncer stood behind her, manning the guest list and the VIP line; his steroid enhanced muscles bulged through the layer of leather.

Samson stared her up and down, thinking she had a far greater chance of becoming a porn star than the model she imagined herself to be. Her face lit up when she saw him.

“Samson! I heard you were spotted at Club 7 the other night partying with Jacque Willet? I hope you aren’t going to break all of our hearts and tell us you decided to play for the other team?”

He leaned over and whispered in her ear, reaching inside her fur jacket and hefting one of her saline-filled mammaries, rubbing the nipple with his thumb as he spoke.

“Why don’t you meet me up in VIP as soon as you get a break and I’ll let you decide for yourself what team I’m on. Pick out a few other lovelies to join you. I’m celebrating a new contract tonight.”

Samson checked his pockets. In his shirt pocket he had a prescription bottle labeled Acetaminophen. Eight hundred milligrams written out to Jacque Willet. Samson knew there was anything but Tylenol in that bottle. It contained at least twenty hits of Ecstasy.

He opened the bottle, and pulled out one of the pills that he popped it into her mouth. She sucked his fingertips lasciviously before she swallowed the pill.

“Tell them the party favors are on me tonight.” Samson kissed the little porn star, tasting the bitter chalkiness of the Ecstasy. Then he unhooked the velvet rope that separated them and walked past her into the club.

The flashing lights, the artificial smoke, the club goers in lace, leather, and latex, gave the club a haunted house ambiance that Samson found rather silly most nights, but tonight it felt almost inviting, as if everyone in the club sensed the bloodbath that was about to ensue and welcomed it. Grateful to be released from their pathetic pseudo-death, their garish mockery of the undead. Grateful for a chance to experience the real thing.

Samson checked his other pockets as he dove into the sea of humanity, sweating and gyrating around him, their flesh pulsating and undulating with the techno drum beat. In his pants pocket he found what remained of Jacque’s stash of cocaine. It might be hard for Samson to find enough people willing to sell their souls for sex, but in a club like Requiem, he was willing to bet they would line up to sign the contract in exchange for a few lines of coke and some Ecstasy. Killing them all afterward would be the most difficult, but also, certainly, the most enjoyable.

Samson approached another bouncer. He was dressed identically to the ones outside, right down to the hormone enhanced physique, except that he was white and had blonde dreadlocks down to his ass.

“Hey Samson, what’s crackalackin’, Bro?”

“Hey, Milton. How do the ladies look tonight?”

“There’s some thoroughbreds mingling about. A dime piece or two here and there. You know what I’m sayin’?”

Samson hated white boys who affected black slang. He found it offensive and condescending. It made what he was planning a lot easier to stomach.

“Hey Milt, you want some X, man?”

“You ain’t sellin’ that shit in here are you?” Milton brushed his dreadlocks away from his eyes and narrowed them at Samson.

“Nope, this is just for my friends.”

The bouncer glanced up and down the stairs to be certain no one else was watching. There were so many people wearing dark or mirrored sunglasses in the Stygian gloom of the nightclub that Samson wasn’t certain how the man would have known if anyone was watching or not.

“All right then, what you got?”

“Coke or X. Whatever you need.”

“How about a little of both?”

“There’s one catch though.”

Milton crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Samson suspiciously.

“Yeah, and what’s that?”

“I have this contract that gives me ownership of your soul. You sign it and you get to fly for free tonight.”

“Man, you crazy!”

“I’m serious. I’m collecting souls tonight and you’re my first.”

“You want my soul? Like a vampire or some shit? I didn’t think you were into all this Goth shit. But all right, what the fuck then. Let’s do it! Give me that shit. I’ll sign it. But I want a little more than just some drugs if I’m going to give up my soul. You know what I’m sayin’?”

He moved in closer to Samson until his erection pressed against Samson’s leg. In the black lights, the whites of Milton’s eyes and teeth shone neon green, creating a gruesome ghostly effect. With his thick nest of dreadlocks swirling around his head he looked like a wild banshee. Samson gripped the knife in his pocket, eager to draw the man’s blood, drain out his soul drop by drop. Even in his relationships with other men, it seemed to always come down to sex. He’d have to examine that with his therapist one day.

“I didn’t know you were gay.”

The bouncer smirked. “Look, I ain’t gay. I fuck around a little bit here and there, but I ain’t gay. I might be bi or some shit like that. I ain’t never let nobody fuck me in the ass if that’s what you mean. I do the pitchin’. You know I’m sayin’? But I just ain’t never seen a muthafucka as pretty as you. I just want to make out with you a little. We don’t even have to fuck. You can just jack me off or some shit like that.”

Samson smiled. Killing this one would be fun. “Some place private then?”

“We’ve got a little closet up in the VIP room. I’ve got the key.”

Samson followed him up into VIP and into the closet, laughing quietly at the irony. Milton flipped on a light switch and a tiny fluorescent bulb in the back flicked on. The closet was empty except for some old boxes filled with party decorations from Christmas, New Years, Valentine’s Day, and various other assorted holidays. They shuffled back amongst the Styrofoam Santas and Easter eggs and big cardboard hearts until Samson’s back touched the wall.

“How about that X?” Milton’s eyes already twinkled with the effects of some type of amphetamine, his pupils were the size of silver dollars.

Samson popped open the little prescription bottle and handed him one. The bouncer swallowed it dry, grinning wide in expectation, his erection tenting the front of his pants as he stroked it through the coarse denim fabric, leering at Samson. Samson tapped out two neat lines of coke on the back of his hand and offered those to Milton as well. Milton kneeled down and snorted up both lines like a pro.

“Now sign the contract and we can play.”

Samson withdrew one of the contracts from the roll of papers in his jacket and seized Milton’s finger, jabbing it with the tip of an old fashioned ink pen, drawing blood.

“Ouch! Don’t do that shit, man!”

“It’s just a nick. Relax. You need blood for the contract.”

“You’re serious about this shit, huh? About wanting my soul and shit?”

“Oh, I’m very serious.”

“Cool. I’m cool with that, Mr. Lucifer or whatever you think you are. You want my soul? It’s yours. I ain’t doin’ much wit’ it anyway.”