Suicide Kings, page 21
“Mister Carter,” Hans says. “May I call you Eric?”
“Sure. May I call you Fucknut McGee?”
Hans smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes. “Eric. I think maybe we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Which foot would that be?” I say. “The one where you took a swing at me, the one where you sent an assassin after me, or the one where I’m currently hanging from a meat hook?”
“The first two. I’m sorry for that. I was distraught. You had killed my brother, after all. I acted rashly. I’m sure you can understand.”
“Kind of surprised you didn’t send me a fruit basket, actually.” He’s trying to be Good Cop. That’s a strategy that really only works when you don’t know you’re already fucked. Points for trying.
“We have a couple of questions,” Hans says. “First—”
“Where is our uncle?” Otto blurts out. Hans rolls his eyes, clearly trying to look exasperated for my benefit.
“The dead one or the live one?” I say.
“We know Attila isn’t dead,” Hans says. “He can’t be. We haven’t seen a body, and none of us could have killed him before the conclave. You certainly couldn’t have done it. That means he’s still somewhere here on the estate.”
“He is still on the estate,” I say. Hans starts to smile. Aha! We’re getting somewhere. “Stuck in a time-frozen room dead as a doornail. Sorry to burst your bubble.” Otto starts to come at me, but Hans stops him with an upraised hand.
“That’s all right. I’ll get the truth eventually. Let’s move onto the next question. What’s the plan?”
“Whose plan?”
“Yours. Attila, Amanda, that Mexican street meat she claims to be betrothed to.”
“Oooh. She is not gonna like being called that,” I say. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell her you said that until after I kill you.”
“I admire the bravado,” Hans says, “misplaced as it is. You know, we’ve looked into you. Impressive resume if any of it’s true. A god? Returning from the dead? Killing a djinn?”
“Don’t forget cutting your brother’s head off. Not much of a feat, I admit, but I think it bears repeating.”
“I’m going to ask again,” Hans says. “What’s the plan? Is this some elaborate ruse to make us think Amanda’s the heir?”
“How about I ask you a question,” I say. “Why would she pretend to be the heir? What would that possibly do for Attila or her?”
“She’s trying to trick us into murdering her,” Otto says.
“Can’t say that one was on my bingo card.”
“During a conclave many of the restrictions on us are lifted,” Hans says. “Particularly when it comes to the head of the family. If Attila is in hiding and Amanda is not really the heir, if someone were to kill her thinking she was, there’s a good chance they would also die.”
“Amanda is trying to trick one of you into triggering the curse and killing you? By you killing her first? That makes no sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he says. “None of this makes sense. But you know the truth. You weren’t brought in as some sort of death consultant to get to the bottom of this. You’re a part of it. You’re a deterrent, a message to the rest of us that Amanda has a deadly enforcer at her back. You aren’t good for anything else.”
“Oh, I dunno,” I say. “I’m pretty good at the Electric Slide. Macrame. Did you know I knit?” Otto pushes Hans out of the way and gives me punch number ten. I win.
“Fuck this,” Otto says. He picks something up just out of my vision and then holds it in front of me.
“Is that a vibrator?”
“It’s a picana,” Hans says. “An electrical prod designed specifically as a torture device. Very popular with the Venezuelans. High voltage, low amperage. It hurts, but usually won’t kill and leaves few marks on the body. I’ve had a lot of success with it.”
I’ve heard of these. It looks like a short stun baton on steroids. Thick handle, couple feet long, a button to deliver the shock and a rheostat to control the voltage. Nasty piece of work.
“Nice. I like the electric blue color. Do they make them in anything else? It’d look pretty cool in red.”
Otto answers me by giving me a demonstration. Electricity rips through me, my muscles locking up, threatening to tear themselves apart. It goes on forever like it’s never going to stop. And then it does. I can’t catch my breath, every muscle screaming in agony.
“Unlike a conventional cattle prod, which can cause a lot of damage in a short amount of time,” Hans says, “a picana doesn’t usually burn. Unless you apply it long enough. The trick is to keep it in one spot until the room begins to smell like barbecued pork.”
“That’s a nice bit of trivia,” I manage to croak out. “It’ll come in handy watching Jeopardy.”
“I don’t think that’s something you’ll be doing,” Hans says.
“Yeah, probably not. I can’t see it going on without Trebek.” The next shock feels like it goes on even longer, but what do I know? It’s all just one big blur of agony.
“Let’s get back to the question,” Hans says.
“Were we doing questions? I thought you were just going to fry me until I started to smoke.”
“If I didn’t still need answers from you,” he says. “Tell you what, if you give me what I want, I’ll make sure you die quickly.”
“You really need to work on your sales technique.” My voice is a harsh croak that I can barely hear over the hammering of my own heart.
“Where’s Attila?”
“Attila’s dead. Amanda’s the heir. She’s engaged to Gabriela. And no, she’s not trying to trick you into killing her.” Otto zaps me again and I black out for a second.
“Every time you lie to me, Otto is going to hit you.”
“Otto? He hits like a baby.” He punches me a few times, like Rocky with a side of beef. “You caught me. I lied. All the babies I’ve met hit harder than he does.” Another punch.
“Otto, please,” Hans says. He pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s warding off a headache. “Mister Carter, I’m not going to lie to you and say I don’t enjoy this. It’s rather a hobby of mine, actually. But we are somewhat pressed for time. So, I would appreciate it if you would give us the truth.”
“Hans, buddy,” I say. My eyes go in and out of focus, stinging from the sweat dripping into them. “You don’t know what you’re looking for. You want something to make yourselves feel like you have an advantage over everyone else. I get it. This is a power play to bump a piece off the board and put yourselves in position to take out the queen.”
“Otto?” Three punches and an extended date with the picana.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Otto says. “He doesn’t know a thing. Let’s just cut his head off and call it a day.”
“Speaking of cutting off heads,” I say. My voice sounds like grinding gears. There’s no saliva left in my mouth.
“Otto, you need to leave,” Hans says. “Now. Go fix yourself and meet Mother,” Hans says. “I’ll join you at dinner. I can break him.”
“Are you sure?” Otto looks dubious.
“He’s not a threat,” Hans says. “And your head’s about to fall off. I’ve got this. Go. I want to try another technique.”
“All right.” Otto looks at me with an expression almost like pity. “We have another five hours until dinner. He’ll drag this out as long as he can. Goodbye, Mister Carter. I can’t say I’ll miss you.”
“Same to you, honeybun. Smooches!” He slams the door on his way out. It sounds like a casket lid closing.
Chapter 18
“Now we can actually get some productive work done,” Hans says.
“Somehow I don’t think you’re talking about interrogation anymore.”
“You would be right. All that noise about a plan was for the benefit of my idiot brother, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out. No, this is just a happy convergence of revenge and a hobby.”
“You like frying people with cattle prods?”
He pulls out a leather chef’s knife bag from behind me and places it on a table pressed against the far wall. It’s held together with straps and buckles, HW embossed in large letters.
“That’s some quality workmanship,” I say. “You even got it initialed so you know which one is yours at the psycho party.”
“You’re sounding a bit tired, Mister Carter,” Hans says, unrolling the bag and pulling out a short-bladed knife. “I could barely understand you. Maybe this will wake you up a bit.”
Every muscle is screaming, my legs are damn near lifeless. Electrocution will do that to you. I try to move my legs, but all I can do is rotate my ankle a bit. Not much I can do but wait and hope he doesn’t slice off too much before I can do something about this.
“Feeling awake now?” he says. “I’d hate for you to be unconscious for the rest of this. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many tattoos on anyone.” He runs the blade gently along the borders of my tattoos. “This is going to make skinning you a challenge.”
“I always like a good challenge.”
“I don’t think you’ll like this one.” He punches the knife into my left pec just below the collar bone and leaves it there. It hurts. A lot. Everything goes black and then snaps back into focus.
“Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to knock you out. You had an open patch of skin, you see, and I needed somewhere to put the knife.”
“So glad I can be of help.”
“At this stage most people would be screaming,” he says. “Not cracking jokes. I’m a little disappointed.” He turns back to his collection of knives and hovers his hand over each in turn. “Let’s see. What to use. Cleaver, Kukri, I do love this Bowie knife.”
“Hans,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. I’ve got some feeling returning to my legs and I experiment lifting my knee. Still weak, but it’s getting easier. The more I flex the easier it gets.
“Maybe something with more of a serrated edge? A Henckels utility knife, perhaps? An excellent blade for a very reasonable price. No kitchen should be without one.”
“Hans,” I say again, a little louder. I’m only going to get one shot at this. And if I fuck it up, well, I’ve died before.
“But I’m not sure that’s really—Oh. Oh, yes. I think this one will do.” The knife he picks up looks like it’s out of a science-fiction movie. Black handle, shaped grip, and a wide serrated blade that curves up to a single point.
“Hans.” Louder, but still quiet. But this time it breaks his monologuing.
“You had something to say, Mister Carter? A blade preference, perhaps?” I mumble something, the only clear word being “Attila.” “Oh, you want to talk? Of course. We can talk.”
He takes a step closer, but it’s not close enough. I mumble some more, add “Amanda” to the mix. He gets in close. He’s tall, taller than I am, so with me hanging suspended like this we’re at eye level.
He grabs my hair and lifts my head. “Did we hurt you so bad that you can’t speak? I hardly think so. Go on. Say something.”
“I fucked your mom,” I say, wrapping my legs tight around him, pulling him closer.
Close enough to bite his nose off.
Hans screams and drops the knife to grab at his nose with both hands. Blood pours between his fingers. He tries to pull away, but my legs are clamped tight. I spit his nose out, swing forward enough to take another bite. This time I get something that gives way a lot more easily than cartilage and flesh and pops like a zit.
His screams are louder, more high pitched. I squeeze more with my legs, getting leverage to lift from my hips. It’s agonizing, but it’s worth it. A second later I have the cuffs over the hook and I take Hans down to the floor. My chest screams where the knife is stuck, but I don’t have time to pay attention to it. I’ve only got so much energy and it’s not going to last much longer.
He finds the skinning knife and takes a swipe. I roll off him before he can stab me with it. He pulls himself up by the bed against the wall as I roll to my feet. I stagger but I don’t fall. If Hans were thinking straight, he’d end this by opening the front door that’s just a few feet to his right. Just because magic doesn’t work in here doesn’t mean he couldn’t conjure a fireball from outside and roast me while I can’t defend myself.
But he’s not thinking straight. Hans is scared. Scared people make mistakes. Like leaving themselves wide open. I hit him like a bull, knocking the skinning knife out of his hand and slamming him into the wall hard enough for it to crack. That’s not saying much—it is gingerbread, after all.
He kicks, knocking my foot out from under me. I go down to my knee while he runs to his knife bag. He pulls the biggest goddamn Bowie knife I’ve ever seen out of it, turns to attack me. Instead he gets a face full of the short-bladed paring knife he conveniently left inside my chest. The blade slices across his face and through his popped eyeball, across where his nose used to be and below his lips, splitting them in two.
I knock the Bowie knife out of his hand, punch him a couple times until he goes down.
“Don’t,” he says, his voice slurred from the split lips, thick with blood from his ruined nose. “I can give you what you want. Anything. I have money. I have power.” I pick up the picana. He sees it and starts to whine like a kicked dog.
“Hans, you don’t have anything I want,” I say. “I’m really sorry about your eyeball. That wasn’t on purpose. Your nose was, though.”
“Please don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. Please don’t—” I jam the picana into his remaining eye hard enough to crack bone and sink it deep into his skull. I turn it on. I leave it on. I don’t stop until smoke drifts from his eye socket.
“You’re right, Hans,” I say. “It totally smells like barbeque pork.”
* * *
—
My shirt and coat are a mess, so I take Hans’s. I find the keys to the handcuffs in a pocket and take them off. I’m tempted to leave Hans on the floor where he’s still smoking, but it seems a pity to waste that meat hook.
It’s fucking agony, but I get my hands under his armpits, haul him up, and slam him down onto the meat hook, which catches him just inside the right shoulder blade. He’s lopsided. I decide to let my sense of aesthetics and symmetry suffer and leave him there.
Hans is a bigger guy than I am, so his shirt hangs off my frame like a tent. That’s fine. I just need to get back to my room without anyone noticing me. I don’t have a Sharpie or my stickers, but they’re more affectation than anything else. I use Hans’s blood to write I’M HANS DON’T BUG ME on the shirt. When I get outside I’ll magic it up. With all the spells these people are throwing around it should disappear in the background noise.
I stagger out of the house and the magic hits me immediately. The power in my tattoos flares to life and I already feel better. Some of them speed up healing, some of them dull pain, some of them help me dodge bullets. None of them are good enough to fix everything.
Blood is seeping from the wound in my chest. Mictlantecuhtli knows spells to heal flesh, muscle, bone, but I’m still working on blood. It takes a few tries, but I’m able to coagulate the blood inside the wound and at the surface, turning it into a thick scab. The burns from the picana hurt more than the stab, but they’re hard to see. More like very targeted sunburns. I magic the words on the shirt and, sure enough, even I can barely register it with all the magic in this place.
Getting through the arboretum and into the house is easy enough. Finding my room takes a little longer. The house is a maze of shifting hallways and staircases I almost get lost in and I don’t entirely trust my landmarks. I could call Bigsby, but there’s something just on the edge of my mind that I haven’t quite pieced together yet that stops me.
A little searching and I find my room. It’s one of two doors next to each other that don’t look like any of the others. Where the rest are all deep oak-paneled doors, these are round-topped monastery doors. The other night there were three, but now the third room’s gone.
My door has a traditional Día De Los Muertos calavera carved into it, which is a bit on the nose. Gabriela had the third room, but once the conclave started she must have moved in with Amanda to avoid someone in the family happening upon it. Their door has two crossed brooms over a heart. Really trying to sell that whole lesbian witch motif.
I close the door behind me and grab a field surgery kit from my messenger bag. I wish I’d known this whole blood trick a long time ago. Would have saved me a lot on QuikClot over the years. There’s no point in fucking with it, but I tape a 4x4 over the stab wound in case it starts bleeding again. Other than that there’s not much I can do. I have some burn cream and that salve I used with my shoulder the other night for the bruising. I keep finding new spots to put it on. A couple I bandage over.
I find the spot in my neck where the dart hit me. It’s closed up for the most part, and I don’t think I need to bandage it. There’s something else, though. Something about the dart and how it got me. Then it hits me. The thought’s not fully formed, but I don’t think I have to time to pick it apart. I grab my phone and text Amanda.
Turn off Bigsby
A moment later she answers with, Done. Why?
Before I can respond there’s a knock at my door. I pick up the Sig from the dresser and stand a couple of feet to the side of the door. I aim a little lower than head height. If somebody comes in low, I should still be able to put a round into them.
“Yes?”
“It’s Gabriela. Can I come in?” I reach over to the latch and unlock the door.
“Sure. Door’s open.”
“Or you could open it for me,” she says. “Like somebody who isn’t expecting this to be a trap, because now I’m wondering if it’s a trap for me.”
