Jesus Christ. Is it the knife? Bea tried an experimental jab, heard a low thrumming growl from the mist. Fresh scarlet spread through its confused billows, and she decided sticking around for whatever was making that noise was an even worse idea than diving into the stairwell.
The elevator’s door began to close. Bea peeled herself from the wall, carpet burning bare feet, and bolted into a brightly lit, mirror-walled box carpeted with familiar, shorter blue nylon. She fumbled for the door-close button, managed to press at least four different floors at once, hit the lobby too for good measure, and leaned against the brass rail—it did look like the elevator from last night, but she couldn’t see a single red bead or bit of cracked glass.
Maybe it had been cleaned and repaired? Rich people could do that, make evidence vanish. She grabbed the brass handrail—now she remembered bracing herself against it last night, driving the stake in, her entire body a solid bar of muscular intent.
It seemed to take forever before descent began; she could barely tell the difference between movement and the deep unsteady fearful flip-flopping of her stomach. Oh thank God. Thank you, God. You are a monster too, but you just might exist.
At least, so she thought before the lights flickered and the whine mounted once more. Bea wedged herself in a back corner, knife clasped tight in one sweaty, smarting palm, and bit back a scream when the elevator jolted to a definitely unscheduled stop.
No Muzak. Nothing but the thumping of her heart, a faraway screeching, the drill-whine fading before it, too, abruptly stopped. Were there cameras in here; was the monster watching? Would she just be driven into smaller and smaller boxes before he let the little green child-things tear her to bitty pieces?
Jared, if we meet in hell I’m just gonna kill you. She gripped the knife, tried to slow her heaving lungs.
The elevator shuddered. Machinery whirred, a series of chimes sounded. When the movement began, she at first couldn’t tell in what direction she was going.
Then it became clear, judged by stomach-flips, ear-tubes, and the subtle shift of gravity.
Up. She was being taken back up.
Could be good. Or very, very bad.
She could do nothing but wait and see.
The door slid aside, calm and quiet, just doing my job, ma’am. Bea stared, blinking, one bare arm extended, the blanket’s hem quivering a few inches from the floor and the switchblade’s point making a wavering shape in the air.
The monster stood, toes placed precisely at the metal threshold; he must’ve had his nose nearly pressed against the outer shell. If she was watching this situation from comfortably outside, Bea might have felt like laughing.
His gaze fastened on her, and she could swear there were little red pinpricks in his pupils.
Oh, God. No need to swear, in fact. The crimson dots were indubitably real, waxing and waning as he regarded her.
The monster turned his head slightly, dropping his chin. He wore yet another grey suit, but this jacket was torn to ribbons and his trousers soaked to the knee with something viscous-dark.
“Sir?” A voice from behind him, a pleasant tenor. Bea’s heart leapt with sudden, frantic hope—another human, maybe capable of helping—but the yell died in her dry, scraped-raw throat. There might not be any point; this stranger sounded like the big mustachio’d bodyguard who ran some part of ‘Everly’s’ security apparatus, the one who liked to wear bowler hats. “I believe they’re gone.”
“Clear the building and leave.” The monster did not deign to truly look at whoever it was, simply continued issuing orders. “Wind down the business concerns, torch the Everly and Jamison identities, make sure Comptain is also thoroughly gone, since I am rather uneasy about current events. Ready Andranov and Caine for use, prepare a matching set of alternates for my lady. Use whatever bolthole seems best for tonight; I shall meet you tomorrow at the lair upon the north hills.”
Everly. Jamison. Comptain. She knew about Everly, and Comptain was the name she and Don guessed the monster had used as late as 1905, still occasionally mentioned about on podcasts and niche radio shows dedicated to the unsolved mysteries of Chicago.
Hearing it was like being pinched in a sensitive spot, and she couldn’t even feel good about their theories being correct. Jamison must be similar. How many names did he have?
Another little detail: lair on the north hills. If she escaped this, maybe digging through more public records would—but that was stupid. There was nowhere to go, she was even more fish-in-a-barrel than under the bed.
Still, she had the knife.
“Yes, sir.” Nothing else, just a dead silence and a shadow passing behind him before the faint whoosh of a fire door’s controlled closing, a final deadly click.
Oh, sure, that guy can use the stairs. He’s a henchman too, I bet, or five of them stacked under a bowler hat.
The monster stared at her, his sandy head cocked, and his hands—broad, capable, with blunt square nails—hanging at his sides. The goo on his shins dripped from trouser hems; his shoes weren’t shiny any longer. His lower lip relaxed, showing two tiny divots where the longest fangs just touched the skin, almost worse than the red pinpricks.
Almost.
Do it fast, Bebe. Jare’s voice in her head sounded tired. Auditory hallucination or actual ghost, she’d find out in a few minutes at most.
Her arm bent. The knife’s sharp, cold tip pressed cold against her own throat. The monster tensed, his shoulders swelling under strips of grey wool. He leaned forward, his toes still just at the elevator’s verge.
Does he need an invitation to come in? That would be hilarious. “I’ll do it,” Bea said, amazed at how normal she sounded. Husky, as if coming down with a cold...but matter-of-fact, determined. “Believe me, I will do it.”
