8. Initiation
8
Initiation
Just past 11:00 PM, I arrived in the sleepy suburban neighborhood. Lamplit streets wove between houses with boxed hedges and deep green lawns. It smelled like home here, the home I was born in, far removed from the grime and grit of downtown. My destination sat at the end of a cul-de-sac, painted navy and white in a typically coastal style.
I parked the Porsche and rocked back in my seat. My phone had yet to ring, so I wasn’t too late. Grimm must have assumed that my brother and I were having a pep talk about losing his murder virginity. The real shit family bonded over.
The memory of Donovan sitting, defeated, in the grass stuck with me. I scrubbed my hands along the shaved sides of my head, wishing I was an Etch a Sketch and could shake my mental slate clean. Magic required concentration, and explaining to my boss why I’d turned up to this job alone demanded a level of composure I lacked.
Another cigarette wouldn’t help, and the bottles of Jameson in the backseat floorboard were empty—I’d checked. So, I’d be doing this sober. Nothing would take the razor edge off my nerves or ease my apprehension that four members of the Bloody Hex marching into Jacoby Thatcher’s house with intent to kill was easier said than done.
But they were inside, with security presumably disabled. They set this up for Donovan, like Crime for Dummies. I didn’t need such allowances. I was a professional, a mercenary, a gun for hire. And this was a cakewalk.
I made it onto the porch, flanked by pampas grass that swished in the wind. When my boots crunched on broken glass, I looked up to find the overhead light shattered. The doorbell, one of the video camera kinds, had been ripped from the wall, leaving bare wires exposed.
Very subtle, Avery. I frowned.
Only a storm door separated me from the carnage I imagined waited inside: Jacoby Thatcher bound and gagged, no doubt bloodied from the struggle that had already transpired. Things would be broken, tables overturned, and the floor littered with all manner of debris.
The Bloody Hex had outgrown quick, merciful kills long before I met them. Simple murder lost its luster after years of repetition. Repeat offenders either burned out or found a kink to keep things interesting. Avery liked toying with people. Torture was always on the menu when he was involved. Vinton got most of his jollies in postmortem. When we didn’t need to leave a body at the scene, he usually carted it home to play Dr. Frankenstein until the whole building reeked of decay. Grimm preyed off fear. He was the least violent of us all, but he had more than a few common phobias on illusion tap, and he loved watching people squirm.
“Donnie! Fitch!” A deep, gravelly voice came from inside the house. Grimm. “Get your asses in here, boys. We got work to do!”
Breath whooshed out of me to cloud in the crisp air. He must have seen the car, but not well enough to realize I’d come alone in it.
What was my plan? I hadn’t thought this far ahead. Driving Donovan to the outskirts of town was a half-formed idea borne of last-minute desperation. It hadn’t worked, either. Not really. He’d be there when I returned, no more convinced to cut ties with the Bloody Hex than he had been last night.
If I marched in there now and broke Jacoby Thatcher in half, it solved nothing. If anything, it made matters worse. Grimm already had a bead on me after last night’s conversation, and directly defying his orders by stonewalling Donovan’s initiation could get us both in hot water.
“Boys!” the voice from inside bellowed, and I cringed. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
I swung a hand toward the storm door, opening it so hard the top hinge popped loose from the frame. It slammed against the house at an angle, then dragged back a foot or so before it stopped. The metal bottom corner stuck in the trench it had dug in the wood decking.
I cursed and clenched my fist, ratcheting a mental grip on the damaged door. The glass pane broke with a loud pop, and I crumpled the frame like a ball of tinfoil. Shoving it aside, I walked into the darkness of Jacoby Thatcher’s house.
Judging by the sparse furnishings, drab color scheme, and lack of pictures on the walls, Jacoby lived alone. As I ventured further inside, I decided he barely lived here at all. Everything appeared untouched like a model home meant to be toured and appreciated but not interacted with. I’d seen these types before. Workaholics with empty refrigerators and strictly shirt/suit wardrobes. It made sense for Maximus Lyle’s loyal lapdog. The guy probably ate, drank, and slept Capitol matters. All business, all the time. No wonder he looked so bland every time his face came up on the news.
Moving toward the dining room found signs of a struggle. A modern art piece hung askew, and a vase had been reduced to a pile of porcelain and flower stems on the ground. Getting warmer.
This house blurred together with so many others. Kitchens and bedrooms and dogs that barked while children cried. How many times had we done this? Made ourselves into boogeymen who crept in at night, wrecking homes and ending lives?
I heard the men laughing and talking.
Down a hallway into the back of the house, I arrived in a sunken room populated by rich, dark furniture, a wall-mounted television, and a fireplace. In the center of the space, Jacoby Thatcher sat gagged and bound with a bright orange extension cord. Grimm, Avery, and Vinton flocked around him.
Grimm stood aside with his hands in his jacket pockets while Vinton rifled through the built-in cabinets on the fireplace wall. Avery crouched at eye level with the restrained man, dragging the flat side of a knife up Thatcher’s exposed forearm.
Stepping down into the carpeted area drew the attention of Thatcher. Sweat soaked his thin brown hair and gave a fishy sheen to his sallow skin. He wore striped, button-down pajamas, proof he owned something that didn’t qualify as business professional.
As I approached, Thatcher’s whimpers became fervent grunts. He bucked back in the chair so hard it almost tipped .
Avery buried the dagger in the man’s thigh, pinning him to the chair. Thatcher howled through his gag—a sock from his bare foot secured by a strip of duct tape.
“Do you know how degrading that is?” Avery scowled at me. Another knife appeared in his hand, and he used it to gesture to Thatcher, who wailed. “I’ve been working this schmuck for the past fifteen minutes, then you walk in and make me feel like the opening act.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, thanks for warming up the crowd, Avery. I’ll take it from here.”
When I moved forward, Grimm sidestepped to block my path. “Fitch.” He looked past me, searching for and finding no one else. “What’s going on?”
“Just doing what you told me to, boss,” I said.
Vinton glanced back then, realizing what the others already had. “Where’s Donnie?”
I didn’t answer, locked in a stare-down with Grimm that neither of us proved willing to yield. “How do you want this done?” I gestured to Thatcher. “Any special requests?”
The bound man started up again in a cacophony of grunts and wails. He rocked in the chair, scooting it slowly across the low pile carpet.
“Just get it over with.” Avery crossed his arms over his tweed waistcoat. “It’s no fun anymore.”
Grimm said my name again. “Where’s your brother?”
The ceiling fan spun circles overhead, failing to dispel the smell of panic in the room—Thatcher’s and mine, mingling. As my pulse picked up tempo, the electrical cord constricted around Thatcher’s body. It cut deeply into his arms and chest, and the tail end snaked around his neck.
“Fitch,” Grimm repeated. “What did you do?”
The bound man’s cries weakened as the air squeezed out. His pitiful whimpers struck every one of my already frazzled nerves.
“I’m waiting,” Grimm rumbled.
Thatcher whined a shrill sound that must have taken all his effort to squeak out. I rounded on him with my fist raised.
“Shut up!” I snapped, and he did, too.
His head tipped sideways where the spinal cord had separated. Internal decapitation. Immediate silence.
Avery whistled. “Damn.”
My jaw clenched as I looked away.
Grimm echoed my thoughts when he said, “You’re out of control, boy.”
It was starting to feel that way. Like yesterday’s toilet bowl spiral was still sucking me down. Nothing I could say would stop the sensation of drowning, but words came out anyway.
“This is stupid,” I said. “So fucking stupid. And it’s not about Donnie at all. It’s about you and your endless power trip. Just saying jump and wanting us all to ask how high.” Everything was hot, swelling up from my gut like a sickness I wanted to puke out.
“I jumped, damn it,” I continued. “I’m here. And Thatcher’s dead, so congrats. You got what you wanted. Like always.”
Vinton dropped the books he’d been holding. His muscles rippled as he squared himself with me. “You’d better show some respect, you little cocksucker.”
Predictable. And brazen to call me names when we all knew he’d lick Grimm’s shoes given the chance.
“Stay out of this, kiss ass,” I told him. “The men are talking.”
The burly man growled and lunged forward, across the room but closing fast.
I swung an arm toward him, rocketing force in a clothesline that struck him center mass. He flew backward into the fireplace, crumpling the mesh screen and upsetting the pile of logs.
Avery muffled a laugh. “Well, that’s my cue.”
A two-wheeled dolly materialized in his hands. He slid it under the legs of the chair containing Thatcher’s lifeless body. When the dolly tipped backward, the bound man’s head lolled.
Vinton lumbered to his feet, so enraged I thought steam might rise from his polished dome.
“Gimme that,” he snarled at Avery, reaching for the dolly and its corpse cargo.
I tensed, bracing for retaliation until Grimm spoke again.
“No.” He stopped Vinton with a shake of his head. “This is neither the time nor the place.”
Vinton withdrew, sulking.
“Down, boy,” I sneered at him.
The necromancer let out a roar. Thatcher’s body forgotten, Vinton charged at me. Full linebacker move, ready to take me to the ground.
Before he could reach me, I punched up through the air and caught him mid-flight. I struck him in the gut with enough force to launch him into the ceiling. He crashed through the fan and its attached light fixture, reducing the room to darkness with a shower of drywall dust.
His body needed no assistance from me to plummet to the floor and land with a thud that knocked the air out of him.
Grimm surged forward, suddenly near my face. He caught hold of my forearm and held it aloft where I’d used it to throw Vinton.
In the blackened room, it took a moment to discern Grimm’s expression as he loomed over me. His shoulders heaved with scarcely controlled breaths.
“That’s enough.” His grip on my arm wrenched painfully tight. He was still holding on when someone else joined the conversation.
“Oh, no,” Donovan groaned—I recognized his voice immediately. “I missed it.”