Chapter 10
John
Eight hours. The girl from his visions, the reason his head, blood, and guts had been hurting for days had been sitting at the kitchen counter waiting for him for eight hours. She was barely conscious now, her head bent over her considerable chest, her long hair pooling on the table like dark water. Every time he thought she was about to collapse she held on.
John had gone through enough training to know what the human body could endure if its owner’s mindset were right but he hadn’t expected to see that kind of will in Daniel Schwartz. Her skin was sallow, her lips like two pale grubs. If she kept going, she might not survive and she fucking well knew it. It was a risk she seemed content to take.
“Why?” Colt had asked after the first two hours of mute observation. “Why the fuck does she want to see you so bad?”
“I don’t know but until I hear back from Elkin I’m not going near her. We’ve got our orders; we’re not allowed in the house.”
“But—
“But nothing we’re not going in there.”
Eventually he’d told Seb and Colt to get some rest, partly because they looked ready to sneak downstairs and force-feed Schwartz but mostly because he could feel the assholes trying to tell him something and he needed to be alone when the energy hit.
The instant his friends were gone the vision sucked him out of reality and spat him into an alien world. Daniel Schwartz floated alone in a ball of glowing light. All around her was a sticky blackness that swelled and consumed like cancer. She was safe in her glowing amniotic sac, but everything around her was dying. Collapsing. Reverse-existing.
He came to with his head between his knees, his forehead slick with sweat. The visions always took a toll but this was pain on a new and agonizing level. John had no idea what the waking nightmare represented, but he didn’t need to consult a big book of shamanic omens to know it didn’t promise a bag of laughs.
A quiet cough made him glance up at the monitors. Schwartz had raised her head a little and was staring straight into the camera. She had a very unusual face. Her features were all individually bold; thick brows, plump lips, sharp cheekbones, heavily lashed eyes and a slightly aquiline nose. It should have made her look harsh, ugly even, but excessiveness suited her. Even half dead she was beautiful, in an overblown alien kind of way. Although when it came to excessiveness her face was no match for her body. What force had shaped her like that? She had big tits, a round ass and a waist like a Barbie doll. In a Darwinian hunter-gatherer sense this girl seemed expressly designed just to get a man hard and keep him that way.
For the dozenth time his eyes fell to the marks left by Elkin’s handcuffs, and just like every other time his breath caught in his throat. He forced himself to look away, disgusted by his thoughts. It was one thing to have visions but visions layered on top of fucked-up sexual desires? It was a wonder he wasn’t in a padded cell.
The sharp vibration in his pocket almost startled him out of his chair. Elkin was finally calling him back. He fumbled for his phone and hit the answer button. “Hello?”
“What do you want, Mr. Blackwood?”
Fuck, he hated the way Elkin addressed him, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her to call him John.
“I thought you should be made aware of Schwartz’s situation,” he said. “She hasn’t eaten or drank anything since she arrived. She hasn’t slept either. She wants to meet with me, I’m not sure why but she’s refusing to take care of herself until I do.”
“So why aren’t you meeting with her?”
John pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at it in disbelief. “You told us she’s dangerous. Manipulative.”
“She is. She’s also no good to Middlebend if she’s dead. Go down there and have done with it.”
“And if this sets a bad example? If she thinks she can get us to do anything by starving herself?”
“Well then she’d be right. I understand, Mr. Blackwood, that Daniel Schwartz is a bothersome little cunt…”
John’s brain went a numb.
“…but unfortunately we need her alive and well. Your job is to keep her contained and happy. I don’t care how much contact you or your men have with her, as long as those two things take precedence. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” John said, still reeling from her use of the word ‘cunt’. “And if she manages to use that contact to manipulate us for her own ends?”
“Are you saying three former operatives aren’t a match for a girl slowly withdrawing from a panoply of illegal substances?”
“No,” John said fighting to keep his voice even. “I’m saying I want her to deal with us on our terms.”
“I’m afraid that’s not your choice to make. Now, I suggest you go and find out what Ms. Schwartz wants and how you can give it to her, am I understood?”
John’s fist tightened around his phone. “Loud and clear.”
“Excellent.” Elkin hung up without so much as a goodbye.
“Goddamit.” John put down his phone, tempted to pitch it across the room instead.
The last thing he wanted was to talk to Schwartz but what fucking choice did he have? Best he could do was go in and sort everything out before Colt and Seb realized what he’d done. He wasn’t going to tell them Elkin was happy for them to talk to her. No sir, they’d be better off thinking it was a fire-able offense.
John got to his feet and checked that his gun, knife, cuffs, and ammo were all where they needed to be. He doubted it was necessary, even if Daniel Schwartz was Annie Oakley she didn’t look capable of lifting a stick of gum in her present state. Still, better to be safe than sorry. The journey around to the front of the house was a pain in the ass but it gave him time to think. He’d just have to be quick, professional, make it clear she wasn’t going to be leading any of them around by the short hairs.
Strong words but John couldn’t ignore the fact that his gut was tingling and his mouth was dry. He felt like he was fifteen sneaking out to meet a girl under cover of darkness, both their parents completely unaware.
Leave it, Blackwood, just get this over with.
He scanned his keypass at the front door and moved into the cold, quiet house, moved inside the cool quiet part of his head where he could conduct this unwelcome interview on autopilot.
At least he tried, when he saw Daniel Schwartz sitting at the kitchen counter all the microscopic hairs on his arms and face and neck began prickling. He’d known she was the girl from his nightclub vision the moment he’d seen her glittery heel emerging from the limousine but now he was in her physical presence he felt the humid head-spinning rush of a prediction coming full circle.
She turned and looked at him, her strange gunmetal gray eyes barely open.
“I’m here,” John said, staring at her chin. “What do you want?”
Now she knew her wait was over Daniel Schwartz seemed to be tapping additional energy reserves. Her eyes grew wider, her expression more alert. “You’re not what I was expecting. You’re…” Her eyes lingered on his lower lip. “Beautiful.”
Jesus wept. John walked around the counter and filled a glass with water. “You need to drink, it’s been eight hours.”
“Really?” Daniel looked surprised. “It feels like it’s been ten minutes. Except my arse is numb as fuck.”
She swore with a cheerful irreverence, as though she was decorating her sentences with flourishes of bad language. John didn’t know if it was a cultural thing but he sensed she was barely aware of her cursing. He handed her the water. “Go slow or you’ll puke it back up.”
She grasped the glass with two hands and took a slow sip. John felt his throat relax as though he too had been dying of thirst.
“Thanks for coming to see me,” she said. “I’m not dangerous, I promise.”
In his mind’s eye John saw her long meandering rap sheet, remembered his father’s best friend weeping like a newborn baby. “Tell that to the people you’ve stolen from.”
Daniel gave a small dry laugh. “Yes, those poor CEO’s, no longer able to own nineteen jet skis.”
She raised a small fist and shook it. “The humanity.”
“You steal from people.”
“Rich people.”
“And that’s better?”
She shrugged. “Rich people steal from me, it’s just called tax avoidance instead of robbery. You know, if you weren’t a rich boy you wouldn’t care. Nobody cares about rich people getting robbed except other rich people.”
John felt his temper start to rise. “Glossing over the fact you think I’m rich—”
“Oh, come on, man, it’s obvious. It’s all in the way you walk.”
“—what about the justice system?” John said, his temperature rising.
She laughed, the noise even more irritating because it sounded genuine. “Oh, you mean the incredibly corrupt, self-serving, negligent justice system that’s run by rich people?” Daniel raised a dark brow. “What about it?”
John shut his eyes, annoyed at how quickly he’d gotten sucked into this ideological vacuum and even more annoyed by the fact that it was all on tape. “I didn’t come down here to have a debate. Why’d you want to meet with me?”
She tucked her hands under her chin and gave him a Shirley Temple smile. “Maybe I just thought we could be friends?”
John scowled. “I’m not Colt or Seb, don’t waste your time deceiving me.”
Her Shirley Temple smile grew wider. “Okay, Heathcliff, I won’t but deception is a very subjective concept. Can you hand me that kitchen knife?”
John stared at her.
“I’m not going to slash my wrists, I promise.”
He pulled the smallest blade from the rack on the wall and handed it to her noting her long capable fingers and short unpolished nails. “What are you going to use it for?”
“I’ll show you.” Daniel brought the knife to the material between her breasts and sliced into it with a loud, oddly satisfying snick. The plastic beside her breasts curled, exposing more cleavage. “That’s better,” she sighed and cut all the way down to her belly button, her breasts gaping perilously from their latex confines.
“Thought that cost eight hundred bucks?” John said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“It doesn’t matter; I never want to wear this dress ever again.”
John could understand that. What he couldn’t understand was why she was taking it off in front of him. She wasn’t being seductive, but then why not wait until he was gone? When John saw the shadow of a dark pink areola he cleared his throat. “I should go.”
“Okay,” she said not looking up. She had begun to cut the skirt from the hem up, exposing her upper thighs. John was sure that if he stayed long enough he’d see everything there was to see. “Why are you doing this in front of me?” he said, unable to help himself.
Daniel looked up, still smiling. John was starting to think that was her baseline expression, resting happy face. “What’s a little nudity between friends? Besides, aren’t you going to be watching me shit?”
He coughed, needing the time to cultivate a response. “The, uh, cameras in the bathrooms are blacked out.”
“Cool.” Daniel shoving the latex straps from her shoulders. “Hang on, do you mean the bathroom or the toilet? Or both?”
“The other one. Not the bathroom.” John couldn’t bring himself the word ‘toilet’ to a woman. Even one that was sitting partially naked in front of him.
“Well that’s a relief.” Daniel pulled down her dress exposing her entire upper body. His animal self, the part of him that could forever be distracted by bare tits, tensed. Whatever her faults Schwartz’s tits were…well they were fucking nice. Round and ripe, sitting high on her chest. He watched them jiggle as she continued cutting open her dress and wondered how they’d look all wrapped up in rope, another cord running between Daniel’s legs so when she struggled the friction rubbed her sensitive places.
“You like?” Daniel asked, tipping her head down to indicate her body.
“You’re not my type.” He preferred blondes with small breasts and pretty, proportionate faces.
Daniel didn’t seem offended, she turned her head to the side and studied him. “What is your type Heathcliff? Storefront mannequins?”
Heathcliff’s type was Cathy you infuriating pain in the ass. John inhaled deeply. “Right, I’ve come to see you. You’re fine. I’m leaving.”
She paused in the act of ripping off her skirt. “Wait, I wanted to ask, will you let me go?”
John frowned at her. “No.”
“Please?”
He stepped away from the counter. “You should get some sleep.”
“And you should let me go.” Daniel turned and followed him with her gaze as he walked away. “You know I’m not supposed to be in here.”
John ignored the sudden remerging of the ache in his stomach the one he hadn’t even noticed had faded. “I wasn’t hired to know things. I was hired to make sure you don’t escape, now I’m leaving. Have a good night.”
Daniel stood up all smooth skin and curves, a stripe of dark hair between her legs. Not arrogantly naked, not insolently naked just…naked. Vulnerable and covered in red marks where the latex dug into her flesh.
“I knew nothing was going to come of you visiting me,” she said. “So why did I want to meet you so badly?”
John knew exactly why, but he’d sooner cut off his arm than tell this naked criminal about his visions. “I have no idea, but you should accept the fact that you’re here.”
Daniel smiled, more exposing big white teeth, as excessive as the rest of her. “I meant what I said you know. I can make life suck for you.”
John wasn’t listening, he’d just spotted something he hadn’t seen before. Three red little furrows dug into the nail bed of her right hand. They’d tortured her. They’d tortured her and it hadn’t worked. He recalled his vision; the way she floating in a pool of shimmering light, immune to the thick blackness around her. “You don’t feel the way normal people do, do you?”
Daniel’s eyes lit up. “How do you know?”
“Just a guess.”
“Oh,” she looked disappointed. “Well, you’re right. I have a chemical imbalance. Probably why I’m here, at Casa de Vampyre, instead of some dank basement getting acid poured on my feet. That’s why you should let me go. So I can be free like that whale in Free Willy.”
John had the strange urge to smile, he didn’t like it. “Goodbye.”
“I’ll be seeing you soon, John.”
He didn’t know it yet but he’d be seeing her, too. As soon as he closed his eyes that night he dreamed of Daniel Schwartz. Dreamed she was standing in front of him, her hair falling over her breasts her mouth telling him to do things to her that he could never even say out loud.