Stolen Souls

60

HERKUS HAD HIT the concrete floor hard, the air knocked from his lungs. He had tried to roll away, but the weight settled on his chest, depriving him of air. The Glock almost slipped from his fingers, but he tightened his grip, brought it up, squeezed the trigger blind.

The muzzle flashed on a round moon face, its teeth bared, its eyes wide. Then the weight was gone and he could breathe again.

He scrambled backward until he hit a wall. A high whine and a sensation of pressure in his ears disoriented him. His mind scrambled to piece together his surroundings from the fragments he’d noticed as he entered and found the whore. The madman’s hearing would be as dulled as his own, but he would be more familiar with the layout of the cellar.

Herkus felt something as close to panic as he’d ever experienced. Should he move? Stay still? He swallowed hard to clear some of the pressure in his ears.

He could tell the madman he only wanted the whore, that he’d take her and be on his way, and no harm need come to him. But how to reason with madness?

Through the whine, he heard the whore’s choked breathing. It sounded close to the floor. Had she fallen?

Herkus commanded himself to think, forced his mind to find some sort of order. True, the madman had the advantage of knowing his own dark cellar, but Herkus was armed. If the madman wanted Herkus, he would have to come to him.

He crawled toward the sound, feeling the rough floor ahead, until he touched the whore’s soft skin. Exploring with his fingertips, he found her cheek, her nose, the rag forced into her mouth. His free hand gripped her throat while the other pressed the pistol’s muzzle to her temple.

“You want the whore?” he demanded of the darkness. “You want me? You come.”

He grabbed the chair back and dragged it away from the center of the room. She kicked and mewled as he hauled her across the floor. He stopped when he felt the cold hardness against his back once more.

“You come,” he said.

“No,” a small voice said.

Herkus spun to his right, aimed the Glock in the direction of the word.

“How did you find me?” the voice asked, now to the left.

Herkus re-aimed, squeezed the trigger. The flash illuminated the madman watching from the opposite corner. Herkus swung the Glock in that direction, fired again into the darkness, the second flash showing nothing but empty air.

The whore screamed, the sound muted by the rag in her mouth and the new layer of interference in Herkus’s hearing. He shook his head, swallowed, tried to shake the whistling away.

“That gun is very loud,” the madman said, his accent odd to Herkus’s hearing, not like the other people from this city. “It hurts my ears. Don’t shoot it again or I’ll do something bad to you. How did you find me?”

“I only come for the whore,” Herkus said.

“She’s mine,” the madman said.

“No,” Herkus said. “You steal her.”

“The Lord delivered her to me.”

Herkus laughed. “My boss buy her. Aleksander deliver her. She not yours. She is ours.”

“Do you doubt me?”

The voice so close, Herkus swiped the Glock through the air, sure it would make contact with the madman’s head. It found nothing.

Herkus blinked. His eyes began to distinguish shapes in the black, but none of them the form of a man. He returned his free hand to the whore’s throat and squeezed until she gagged.

“I’ll kill her,” he said.

“That would be a waste,” the madman said. “But if you must. There’ll be another. There’s always another. People like you bring them here to sell. No one knows who they are. They can’t be traced. If one of them disappears, who’ll report them missing? So the Lord brings them to me.”

“You’re crazy,” Herkus said.

“It might appear that way. But you’re wrong.”

“You’re not crazy? Then listen to me. This whore belong to a bad man. She killed his brother. Now he want her dead. I take her away, it’s over. I don’t, this bad man, he come for you. Understand?”

The madman laughed. “You can’t scare me. Don’t you see? I have the Lord Jesus Christ on my side. If an enemy comes to do me harm, He will strike them down.”

“No,” Herkus said. “Jesus will not help you. He won’t strike my boss down.”

“Yes He will,” the madman said. “Like this.”

Something punched Herkus hard in his side, below his ribs, then a weight fell on him. He tried to bring the Glock around to fire at whatever was pushing him to the ground, but the gun was so heavy, his fingers unable to hold it any more. It clattered on the concrete.

He smelled sour milk, felt a warmth spread across his abdomen.

“Like this,” the madman said.

The spike of burning heat withdrew from his side, leaving a deeper pain behind, but it came again in a new place.

And again.

And again.

He reached for it, felt something long and thin and hard, slippery with wetness.

Lips soft against his ear, teeth hard behind them. “Like this,” they said.