Lord of the feast, p.2
Lord of the Feast, page 2
If you want to really learn a business, she’d once told him, you’ve got to learn it from the bottom up.
He’d spent more than enough time at the bottom as far as he was concerned, and when he next saw his grandmother, he’d tell her so.
The elevator dinged as he drew near it. The door slid open and Caprice and Axton stepped out, both wearing their ubiquitous white outfits. Caprice kept urging Ethan to wear white too – It’s a branding thing, she’d say – but there was no fucking way he was going to do that. The two of them looked ridiculous.
He was surprised to see his grandmother here on the third floor. She usually didn’t leave her first-floor office during business hours – and every hour was a business hour at the House of Red Tears. But now that she was here, he figured this was as good a time as any to let her know how he felt about being little more than another member of the cleaning staff. He stopped, opened his mouth to speak, but then Caprice broke into a wide grin and rushed to embrace him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen his grandmother smile – or the last time she’d touched him – and in his shock he forgot all about his determination to better his status in the House.
She held him tight for several moments, and when she released him, he said, “Is everything all right?”
Caprice laughed and then actually reached out and tousled his hair, something she’d never done before.
“It looks like the day is here, sweetie,” she said.
At first, Ethan didn’t know what she was talking about, but then it hit him.
“You mean the day?”
She nodded.
The news stunned him. Caprice had been talking about The Day since he’d been a child, but he’d never actually believed it would happen – and maybe it wasn’t. This might be merely another in a series of false alarms that had occurred over the years. But he’d never seen Caprice so excited before, and that made him think that maybe, just maybe, this time was different.
“Come with us to the Repository,” Caprice said.
Ethan glanced back in the direction he’d come.
“I need to do clean-up in 319,” he said.
“Finished with Mr. Riley already?” Caprice asked.
Ethan wasn’t surprised that his grandmother had known who he’d been playing with. She knew the name and stats of each plaything that was brought into the House, and she knew everything that happened to them while they were under its roof.
“We ended early,” Ethan said. “I guess I wasn’t really feeling it today, you know?”
Axton’s brow furrowed as if he was displeased by Ethan’s statement.
“If you’re going to do a job, you need to take the time to do it right,” the man said.
Ethan hated it when Axton got judgy. Sometimes the guy acted as if he thought he was Ethan’s father.
Without taking her gaze off Ethan, Caprice laid a hand on Axton’s shoulder to silence him. The man bristled, but he shut up. Ethan couldn’t help smiling. He loved it when Caprice did her Hush, doggy thing with him.
“Axton will call one of the regular staff to take care of the room – and Mr. Riley. Won’t you, dear?”
Without replying, Axton removed his phone from his pocket and stepped away to make the call.
Ethan smiled. “It’s good to be the queen, isn’t it?”
Caprice smiled back. “Yes, it is.”
* * *
Ethan got on the elevator with Caprice and Axton. The House of Red Tears had three main levels – most of which were reserved for playrooms – as well as a basement and subbasement. The basement was where Caprice’s and Ethan’s rooms were, as well as Axton’s. It was off limits to all guests, of course, and staff were only allowed in to clean once a week. The subbasement was where the Repository was located, and only Caprice and Axton had access to it. Caprice had taken Ethan to the Repository several times over the years – To get you used to it, she’d told him – but it had been a while since his last trip. A special key was required to allow the elevator to reach the subbasement, and Axton removed his from a pocket, inserted it next to the lowest button on the elevator’s control panel, turned it, then pressed the button. The door slid closed and the elevator began to descend. There were mirrors on the walls of the elevator car – to give an illusion of more space, Ethan assumed – and he watched his grandmother’s reflection as they headed toward the subbasement. There was color in her normally wan cheeks and she couldn’t stop smiling. She always looked younger than her age, but right now she appeared twenty, even thirty years younger. Ethan had always wondered if his grandmother’s youthful appearance had some magical basis, and right now he was certain of it. She might not wear makeup, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t vain about her appearance in her own way. What a trivial use of power, Ethan thought. Then again, maybe he’d feel different when he was in his sixties.
The elevator came to a smooth stop as it reached the subbasement. The door slid open, and Axton removed his key. Caprice was the first to step out of the elevator car, and ceiling lights activated, tripped by motion sensors. Ethan followed and Axton brought up the rear. Overhead fluorescent lights illuminated an antechamber of rough-hewn rock barely larger than the elevator car itself. The air was cool here, but stale, and breathing it was like trying to swallow a handful of chalk. Opposite the elevator, built into the stone wall, was an iron door. Etched symbols covered the entirety of its surface – letters, pictographs, ideograms, and shapes for which no human language had a name. Ethan understood most of them…well, okay, about half, thanks to Caprice’s tutelage, but he didn’t like looking at them. They made his eyes hurt, and if he stared at them too long, he’d get a killer headache. Some of the symbols were designed to keep anyone who shouldn’t be here from getting in, but most were to prevent the things inside from getting out.
There was a single lock on the door, and just as with the elevator, there were only two keys: one for Caprice and one for Axton. Ethan resented not having his own pair of keys that would permit him access to the Repository. Not because he necessarily wanted to come here alone – the damn place creeped him out – but because it was his birthright, and because he wanted his grandmother to trust him. Whenever he brought up the subject, she’d tell him that of course she trusted him, and of course he would get his own keys…someday. So far, someday hadn’t come, and he was beginning to doubt it ever would.
I’m going to run things differently when the House is mine, he thought. Although, truthfully, he had no idea what exactly he’d do. He supposed he’d figure it out.
Caprice used her key this time instead of Axton. She stepped forward, slid it into the lock, and whispered a series of noises that sounded more animal than human. Then she turned the key with an authoritative click, took hold of the knob, and pulled the door open. Ethan had never opened the Repository door himself. It looked heavy as hell, but Caprice seemed to have no trouble with it, and she stepped inside without hesitation. Ethan looked at Axton. The man smiled and made an after-you gesture.
Fucker, Ethan thought, then followed after his grandmother. Axton came in after him, leaving the door open so they could leave in a hurry if need be. Ethan wasn’t certain how the wards on the door worked, but Caprice had once assured him that they continued operating for a short time after the door was opened, emphasis on short. With each passing moment that the door was open, the wards grew weaker, and if you didn’t close the door in time, the things inside would escape – but only after they had their fun with you.
How long before the wards fail? Ethan had asked.
Caprice had given him a sly, dark smile. I don’t know. I’ve always managed to make it out before that happened.
The fluorescent light from the outer chamber couldn’t cross the Repository’s threshold for reasons Ethan was unclear on. This meant that it was absolutely pitch-black inside, but only at first. Soon a faint white glow began to appear, manifesting as small, dim pieces of light, like a midnight snowfall. The pieces expanded, growing brighter as they did so, and began to take on human shape. They floated around the chamber, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, arcing, dipping, diving, and circling. They possessed no discernible features, not even separate fingers or toes, and their forms fluctuated, expanding and contracting, lengthening and shortening as they soared through the air. It was impossible to tell how many there were. Hundreds surely, perhaps thousands. On the rocky ceiling above was a black half-globe that resembled the ones installed in the playrooms, except this was much larger. The small half-globes were called Conveyers, while this one was the Receiver. Ethan didn’t know exactly how the process worked, but the Conveyers captured the spirits of those who lost their lives in the playrooms and – as their name suggested – sent them down to the Receiver, which then released them into the Repository. Luke was somewhere in this maelstrom of swirling wraiths, along with every other person Ethan had killed since coming to live with his grandmother. Not for the first time, he wondered how self-aware these spirits were. Were they merely life energy, no more sentient than electricity freed from batteries? Or did they retain the personalities they’d had in life, either partly or in full? The few times he’d been down here, he’d tried to sense if the wraiths – or as Caprice liked to call them, the Gathered – were reaching out to him, attempting to communicate telepathically. But he hadn’t felt anything then, and he didn’t feel anything now. As far as he could tell, the Gathered were no more intelligent than a school of fish. He supposed it was a mercy. Who’d want to be confined down here in the dark, moments after being tortured and murdered in the most horrendous ways imaginable, along with hundreds of other victims who’d experienced the same thing? It did not sound like a good time.
One of the things he’d always found most eerie about the spirits was their absolute silence. They didn’t moan, wail, or shriek like ghosts in movies or cartoons. They were voiceless, another reason he thought – or maybe hoped – they were also mindless.
“I know it’s been a while since I’ve been down here,” Ethan said, “but I don’t see anything different about these ghosts.”
“The Gathered,” Caprice corrected. “It’s important to have a sense of style about these things.”
Ethan shrugged.
“And as for what’s different about them…” Caprice said.
“Just wait,” Axton finished.
Christ, they’re completing each other’s sentences, Ethan thought. He knew they screwed – neither was particularly quiet when they did it, whether it was in Caprice’s office or her basement bedroom – and that was gross enough, but the idea that they were an actual couple? That was as disgusting as any mess he’d ever mopped up in a playroom.
The three of them watched the wraiths flit around for several moments, and then Ethan saw that the ghosts – the Gathered – were beginning to group together. They soon formed a funnel, like a glowing ectoplasmic tornado, and began spinning around so fast that they appeared to become a solid object. Now this he’d never seen before.
He turned to Caprice. “What does it mean?”
She gazed upon the whirling Gathered with an expression Ethan could only think of as worshipful. To his surprise, tears started sliding down her cheeks.
“It means that after ten long years, enough fuckers have died in this shithole to give us the power we need.”
She turned away from the Gathered and walked toward two recessed areas carved into the wall near the doorway, one above the other. The bottom area was empty. The top, however, was not. Axton followed Caprice, and after a second, Ethan joined them. The top hollow space was roughly eye level, and the Gathered put off enough light to illuminate the object displayed within – a human head, eyeless and missing the top part of its skull. Not only were the eyes gone, there was no brain, either. Ethan didn’t know who the man had been, nor did he know exactly how he’d met his end, although he doubted it was peacefully. Ethan hated the thing. There was no blood on it, and despite the many years it had resided here, it showed no sign of decay – no rotting flesh, no stench of spoiled meat. The damn thing looked so fresh, in fact, that Ethan almost expected it to open its mouth and begin speaking at any moment. But as unsettling as the head’s appearance was, what really bothered Ethan was the way it made him feel when he was near it. His temperature began to rise, pressure built on the right side of his head, and his stomach roiled with incipient nausea. When he’d been a child, he put these symptoms down to not being used to seeing such a grisly artifact, but now that he was an adult – not to mention an experienced killer – he was at a loss to explain why he should react so strongly to the head. He did his best to conceal how he felt, but Axton gave him a sideways glance, as if he was fully aware of how uncomfortable Ethan was. Caprice paid no attention to him, though. Her attention was focused entirely on the head.
She reached up and gently, almost lovingly, stroked a cheek. Ethan shuddered and felt hot bile splash the back of his throat.
“It won’t be much longer now. Soon you’ll be with us once more, and the world shall cry out in despair.”
Caprice leaned slightly forward, and for a horrible moment, Ethan feared she was going to kiss the fucking thing, but then Axton said, “We should go. The Gathered are getting restless.”
Ethan looked back to the whirling column of spirits and saw sparks of blue-white energy shooting off them. The column itself was beginning to wobble, like a gigantic top that was losing momentum, and once it fell, what would happen? Would the spirits break apart and attack them? Or would they rush toward the open doorway and fly outward, heading to wherever the ghosts of murdered men, women, and children go?
Caprice turned away from the head – reluctantly, Ethan thought – and examined the Gathered. The column had now slowed to the point where the outlines of individual spirits could be made out.
“You’re right, Axton. We must leave. Besides, we have much planning to do. Let’s go, Ethan.”
Caprice started toward the door, Axton at her side. Ethan gave the head a last look, and was startled when one of the empty eye sockets winked at him. He turned away quickly and hurried after Axton and his grandmother, mouth clamped shut tight to keep himself from vomiting.
Interlude
Head
Nelson Young was late for a meeting with new clients – not that he gave a shit. He’d spent the last couple hours in his favorite bar enjoying an extended liquid lunch, and he was feeling no pain. He sat behind the wheel of his cherry-red Corvette, blazing down the street, whipping past slower vehicles, rock music blasting from the sound system, windows down, air on his face. Life was good. On paper, at least. In reality, his life was on the shitty side these days.
At forty-three, Nelson was a successful lawyer by any standard, but especially a criminal one. He first started blackmailing people in law school, finding out who was cheating on exams and threatening to expose them if they didn’t pay up. After law school, he joined a small firm, and it didn’t take him long to learn the other lawyers’ secrets – one thing you could always count on is that everyone has secrets of some kind – and he began blackmailing them too. He soon extended his blackmailing operation to those clients who were well off and could afford to funnel a bit of extra money to their lawyer on a monthly basis. One thing he never did, though, was take advantage of a client who was of modest means. Nelson had grown up poor – really poor. People thought they knew what poor meant, but people didn’t know shit. Unless you grew up in actual fighting-rats-for-food poverty, you had no fucking conception of how being poor ate away at you, body and soul, how it ground you down until you had almost no sense of self left, how you’d vow to do whatever it took to claw your way to a better life so you would never again know bone-chilling cold and gut-gnawing hunger. That was why Nelson had studied his ass off in school, gotten scholarships to college and law school, and eventually started his blackmail side hustle. He might’ve made himself into a predator – although he supposed the people he blackmailed probably viewed him more as a parasite, not that he gave a fuck what any of them thought – but he refused to prey on anyone who was even close to being poor.
He had his own practice now, and his clients were all wealthy, or at least wealthy-ish, which meant he was too. He had a hot wife who was ten years younger than he was, and an even hotter girlfriend who was twenty years younger. At least, he’d had a girlfriend. Tonya had gotten knocked up and had wanted him to leave his wife and marry her. He’d wanted her to get an abortion, was happy to pay for it, but she refused. She wanted his baby and she wanted him. No one gave him ultimatums, so he told her to get lost and if she tried to make contact with him again or tried to cause trouble for him in any way, he’d destroy her and the little fucker growing inside her. So what did the bitch do? She went back to her apartment – which he paid for, for Christ’s sake – undressed, got in a tub of warm water, and slit her goddamn wrists.
Talk about a drama queen.
Her funeral had been this morning. He hadn’t intended on going, didn’t see the point, really, but he went anyway. Must be getting sentimental in my old age, he thought. Tonya had kept their relationship secret – that was the deal – so no one at the service knew who he was, which was fine by him. He sat in the back of the small room at the funeral home on a rickety wooden chair. The scent of fresh flowers hung in the air, heavy and cloying, along with the sounds of muffled sobs and hushed whispers. Most of the mourners were Tonya’s age – friends, most likely, along with co-workers at the restaurant where she’d been a server – but there was a contingent of older people who he assumed were relatives. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles…. Nelson ignored the various speakers who stepped up to a wooden podium at the front of the room to talk about Tonya and what a tragedy it was that she died so young. He focused on the open casket surrounded by floral arrangements, on Tonya’s still body lying within, and wondered whether the mortician had used makeup to conceal the cuts on her wrists or just sewn them up. Tonya was garbed in a long-sleeved blouse, so there was no way to tell.
