Chapter Thirty-Six – Luke

 

The two robed men in front of me kept walking and talking back and forth as we followed the rough stone path around the side of the house. Every footstep seemed to pound one word into my mind and engrave a single name into my thoughts:

Molly.

She was in that sex club, all alone, with the zmeu. A sitting duck.

And here I was, unable to find the opportunity to do what I needed to do. One guy, I could drop without serious injury involved. Two guys, though? I’d end up doing more damage to them than I’d like. If it came down to that, I would. But it had to be the last resort. Any amount of physical force from a surprise posture like mine could end up with fatal consequences, and I didn’t want the death of two more or less innocent men on my conscience.

On our left, we passed a small door set into the wall on a part of the veranda that wrapped around and presumably met with the porch I’d seen earlier in the day. One of the guys leading me gave the other a thumbs up, and ducked in through the side door, and my solo guide and I headed off down the path till we reached a set of roughly hewn stairs that twisted their way down.

Good. Now it was just a matter of finding where.

Down below us, about a football field and a half away, a brightly lit bungalow seemed to hang off the edge of the ridge. Bright lights filled the curtained and blind-covered windows, but shapes could be seen moving around inside. The stairs we were on twisted along the side of the house, descending at a steady pace with alternating landscape lanterns placed every so often so climbers wouldn’t lose their footing. The yard stretched out to the edge of the little plateau the mansion sat on, full of scrub brush and cacti that stretched beneath the nighttime stars until the rocky edge cut off into a sheer cliff.

Under most circumstances, I’d have found it almost peaceful. Beautiful, even.

This wasn’t most circumstances, though.

“Hey man,” my guide said, turning back to me about halfway down the steps, pack of cigarettes in hand. Behind him, the bungalow seemed to glow pure white from the number of lights beaming out through the windows. “Mind if I smoke? Guy who runs the place down there hates the smell, and I don’t wanna get bitched out tonight.”

“Nah,” I said, waiting for him to turn back around. “Go right ahead.”

With one hand, he shook out a cigarette from the soft pack as he pulled up his weird beak mask with the other and perched it on top of his forehead. He was younger than I was, as far as I could tell, and looked like any other kid in his twenties. He raised the pack, caught the cigarette filter with his lips, and pulled it the rest of the way out.

“Want one?” he asked, offering me the pack.

I waved my hand. “Don’t smoke. Those things’ll kill you.”

“You know what?” he asked, taking a long drag off his cigarette as he stuffed the pack inside his robes. “A hundred percent of people who breathe air die.”

I shrugged. “They tend to live longer before they do, though.”

“Eh, why bother? What do I gotta look forward to? Getting old? Spending my life with some old broad who can’t stand me, and I can’t stand her? Look at all these guys inside. Know how many wedding bands I see walking into this place? Think their wives make ’em happy?”

I frowned a little. “I don’t know,” I said, an image of Molly flashing into my mind. “Maybe it just takes the right kind of person to be happy with? Not to make you happy, necessarily. No one can do that. Besides, guys like up there, they’re the type who don’t know what happy is. They get a couple hundred million, and they just want more. What you need is a partner in life. Someone who’s going to go through the shitty parts and the good parts with you, work as a team. Not a person who just wants your money, like these guys probably have.”

He nodded a little, took another drag off his cigarette. “Yeah. Guess so.” He shrugged. “Only met a woman like that once before, you know.”

“They’re rare. What happened?”

“Dated in college. Both of us graduated, and she moved to Michigan for her master’s, and I stayed here to help out my mom.” His eyes looked to the ground, and his voice softened. “We tried the long-distance thing, but it just didn’t work out. Some people can do it, I guess, but we couldn’t.”

“Your mom?”

“Cancer,” he said, holding up the cigarette. “Lung. Passed away last year.”

“Shit. Sorry, man.”

“Yeah. She put up a good fight, but fighting that shit’s rough. Finally stopped the treatment ’cause she just couldn’t do it anymore. Too much on her body.”

“Think you’d know enough to quit after all that.”

“You’d think, yeah.” He took another drag, ashed it. “Like I said, though, what’s the point? We live; we die. Try to get our kicks in between, you know?”

“You ever think of calling her up again? Your ex, I mean.”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re friends online, you know, but she looks like she has a pretty good life there. What can I give her?”

“Well, you cared about her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You love her?”

“Yeah. I mean, of course I did. Met some girls since, and it just ain’t the same, you know?”

“Still love her?”

He kicked the top of the step, slumped his shoulders a little. He looked up at me, kind of a wincing look on his face. “Yeah. Think about her all the time.”

I laughed. “Well, fucking call her, man.”

“Tell her what? I work at a sex club as a greeter? That that’s how I’m using my philosophy degree? I mean, not that I think it’s morally wrong, or whatever, else I wouldn’t be here. They’re all consenting adults inside those four walls. But, I’m not exactly using my degree.”

“Get a different job, man,” I said. “Think I wanna be doing this kind of thing my whole life?”

“But the money, man.”

“And the shit hours? And not being able to tell people what you do?” I asked. “Come on, man, you don’t need this place. Go find something decent, respectable even. Probably be better for you just to go get a job in insurance.”

He laughed. “You know what?” he asked. “You’re probably right, man.” He pulled the flask from his pocket, took another nip from it.

“And cut that shit back, too,” I said, pointing at the metal canister in his hand. “You crawl into that thing, you might never come back out. Believe me, I’m speaking from personal experience here.”

He wiped a hand across his lips. “Just helps me get through it, you know?”

“Yeah, I hear you. But if you use a crutch for too long, even if you don’t need it, your legs’ll stop working after a while.” I glanced down at his cigarette, which had burned down to little more than a nub. “Almost done with that?”

He nodded, took another drag. “Yeah,” he said, breathing out smoke. “Let’s go.”

Mask still on his head, he carefully crushed out the cigarette till it was completely gone, and put it in his pocket. “Groundskeeper gets pissed if you leave butts laying around.” He stood up and turned, started heading back down the stairs. As he walked, he glanced back over his shoulder. “What’s your name, man?”

“Luke,” I said.

“Luke?” He paused and offered me his hand. “I’m Kevin.”

We shook briefly, and I had more than just a tinge of guilt at what I was about to do. Because telling him all that, about what love was, that he should call his old girlfriend up, had made me think about Molly. About how I’d left her inside for too long. How I’d been trying to go my own way in life for too long.

And guilt, of course, at what I was about to do to the guy. Poor bastard was probably going to have to find a new job when I was done, even if he didn’t call that girl up.

I came to a stop. “Hey,” I said, my voice barely more than a whisper.

Kevin came to a stop two steps below me, the soles of his shoes scuffing the stone stair. “What?”

I turned to my right, looking out into the shadows where the landscape lanterns didn’t reach. “Kevin, you hear that man?”

He turned to see where I was pointing, but just shook his head. “Nah, man.”

“Over there,” I said. “Swear I just heard some whispering. Something about a camera.”

When Kevin spoke, a certain kind of terror had entered his voice. Like he knew, deep down, that anything that went wrong was going to get blamed on him. “Are you shitting me?” he hissed.

“Yeah,” I said, stepping off the path and heading down the little hillside. I dropped into a crouch as I inched forward. “Swear to God.”

He came up behind me, his robes nearly dragging in the dirt. “Who do you think it is?” he asked, straining to see into the night.

“Reporters?” I asked. “Tabloid people? Who fucking cares?”

I could hear his heart racing, his breath coming faster as he realized this wasn’t just a normal day at the sex office.

“Shit, I need to call this in, man.” He began to dig inside the front of his robes.

I caught a glimpse of a radio at his belt, saw his hand close on it. “Get down, Kevin,” I said, grabbing his hand away from his radio and pulling him down beside me. “They might see us.”

“What the fuck, man?” he asked as he lay there, face down in the dirt. “We got reporters out here, this is bad fucking news, for everyone. Last time something even popped up on an internet forum, Dominic reamed our fucking asses like they were chew toys.”

“Well, let’s go down there and get ’em, then,” I whispered. “Ourselves.”

“What? Like assault them?”

“At least, let’s see who it is. Maybe it’s one of the club’s members dragging a girl out for some nighttime activities.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He squinted his eyes as he peered into the darkness ahead. “I still don’t even fucking see them, man.”

“Down there,” I said, pointing over to some cactus and a little small boulder.

He began to rise, to crawl closer for a better look.

“Shit, I think they spotted us.” I slammed him back down into the dirt.

“What?” he grunted in surprise. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Kevin, we’ve gotta do this,” I said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, man. Go out with some glory if you’re gonna quit this place. Maybe even get a bonus, too, for stopping some peeping toms, huh?”

His breath was so heavy it blew little plumes of dirt into the air in front of his face. “Okay,” he said after a second. “Let’s go.”

“Okay,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “All right, you come straight out, ask what they’re doing—”

“The fuck? Fuck that.”

“Let me finish, Kevin. You go straight out, I come around from the side and catch them by surprise. Classic maneuver, but they won’t see it coming. Not like this.”

“Classic maneuver? What the fuck?”

“Two tours in Afghanistan, one in Iraq.” I dragged him up to his knees before he could resist.

His eyes widened.

“On three, and we go, okay? One, two, let’s go.”

Despite being unsure of himself, Kevin climbed up to his feet and start scrambling forward.

I jumped behind him, and, before he’d gone ten feet, I was on him. I brought an arm up around his neck, squeezing with my bicep as I pushed his head forward with my other arm and locked them together.

Gasping, Kevin patted my arm, his legs kicking back at me feebly.

“Just let it go, man,” I grumbled as I brought him down to the ground with me, his legs still kicking as he gasped for air. “Just relax.”

Moments later, his body was already limp, and I was pulling the paracord from my pocket and stripping his robes from him. When I had him trussed, with Bobby’s black tie I’d just been wearing gagging his mouth, I lifted him in my arms and carried his unconscious form down to the boulder with the little cactus next to it.

A few minutes’ work, and I was pulling his mask down over my face. Luckily, I hadn’t had to steal his clothes like I had Bobby’s. He looked up at me, his eyes fluttering as he came awake.

“Sorry, Kevin,” I whispered through the mask’s beak as he began to struggle against his bonds and panic. I crouched down next to him, peering down at him through the tiny eye-slits, which gave me almost zero visibility. “You should really call that girl of yours. I bet she’d be happy to hear from you.”

He groaned as he settled back into the dirt.

“You’ll be fine,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “When this is all over, I’ll make sure someone comes and gets you. Promise.” I turned and headed back to the stairs, my path wide and varying as I circumnavigated any stands of brush or cacti.

When I was less than ten feet from the stairs, I stopped in my tracks. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and the feeling of someone watching me suddenly sank my stomach to the dirt.

Breathing heavily, I felt that hinky sensation grow as I searched the night, my hand desperately trying to find a way to get into the back of my robes to grab my sidearm, but failing.

Silence.

I peered into the night, just like Kevin had less than ten minutes earlier. The only difference was, my night vision was better than his.

Nothing. No red eyes. No heavy breathing, except for my own. No hulking shadow creatures. No odd smells.

Nothing.

“Just your nerves, Luke. Find Molly, find Heidi, do what you gotta do, and get out of here.”

Slowly, I turned back around and hopped on the stone stairs, beginning the climb back to the top. On the way, I passed a small group of three greeters, all laughing and talking.

“You coming back to the bungalow, man?” one of them asked as I brushed past them. “No more guests coming in tonight.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to pitch my voice to match Kevin’s. “Yeah, just a minute.” I patted down my robe for effect. “Left my flask up there, I think.”

The three guys laughed. “Fucking A, Kev.” Then all three continued on their way, following the stone steps down to the bungalow. And I continued on mine. Right to the little side entrance that was for employees only.