Chapter 10
Anybody Else
1
Annie watched the floor rush towards his face.
He tried to catch himself on the instrument tray as he went down, but only succeeded in making it sail across the room. The room had spun and danced before his eyes and then his knees lost their usefulness. It was always like this, a sudden loss of motor function and tremors that caused his hands to slap the floor long after he had fallen, even after he could no longer feel his arms. His lips felt cold and foreign, as though they belonged on someone else.
“Mr. Swann,” Vandenheuval called. There was suddenly a bevy of scrubs lifting him from the concrete floor. Annie watched a needle sink into his arm.
An oxygen mask hugged his face and Annie laughed.
Vandenheuval frowned. “Mr. Swann, can you hear me?”
“Get that fucking light out of my eyes,” Annie said.
The doctor snapped off his penlight and sighed. “You can’t overexert yourself like this, you’re on borrowed time as it is.”
Vandenheuval glanced around the cubicle. He moved towards Calliope. “Christ, did you leave any blood in her at all? We need every precious drop for this to work.” His fingers wrapped around her wrist as he took her pulse.
“She’ll be fine,” Annie said weakly. “You wouldn’t believe her story.” His voice echoed and puffed inside the mask.
“Tell me.”
“A muse. She’s a fucking muse. Aphrodite, Zeus, Hades, Hercules, the whole fucking show.”
Vandenheuval shook his head with confusion.
“Zeus, man,” Annie said. “Zeus made her. She was some slave-girl picked for her looks. Forget it.”
“No, go on.”
“Zeus and some broad picked out nine virgins to represent the arts and then sacrificed them.”
Vandenheuval’s breath caught.
Annie reached out and gripped Vandenheuval by the wrist. “Guess what they did to her.”
The scientist looked from Annie to the girl and back again. “Drained her blood and refilled her veins with their own,” Vandenheuval said.
Annie laughed again.
“You’re weak, Mr. Swann, I need you to gather your strength for the procedure. Please try and get some rest.”
“Bring me my phone, I need to call my aunt,” Annie said. “And clean her up, will you?”
Vandenheuval stripped her of the white, soaked nightgown that clearly outlined her breasts. He scooped her up off the bloody, sodden bed and gingerly placed her on a dry, clean gurney. “Someone come and change this bedding,” he said.
“Don’t hurt her,” Annie said.
The bleeding from her hands and feet had finally slowed. Her enormous, dark eyes looked past the doctor and fixed on Annie. She seemed a tiny, stigmatic saint with her snowy coloring and bloodstained appendages. A pearly sheen glowed off her perspiring, shivering body.
“I will be punished,” she said.
Annie nodded and then wondered if she had said it all. She seemed a silent, wide-eyed creature.
No, she hadn’t said it.
He just knew.
Her hands and feet were washed and wrapped in clean gauze. Vandenheuval dabbed at the wounds in her torso where Annie had pierced her with the scalpel and violated her with his fingers dipped in alcohol. When she was bandaged, he finished by washing her tear-streaked face with a soft, cool cloth.
Annie was satisfied Vandenheuval had been on the right track. Drained completely of his own blood and filled with hers, he would be the sacrifice.
Annie smiled and hit the speed dial on his phone.
2
The Villa
Cory sat in the dark kitchen. The shadows of the forlorn villa danced for her across the breakfast nook.
The ice shifted and chinked in her glass, demanding her attention. She sipped the scotch and glanced at the clock on the wall. Her gaze tightened on the war god in the atrium. His eyes were shut but she knew he didn’t sleep.
She wondered if he ever slept.
Somehow, in her musings,
He stood barefoot in brown corduroy pants and a green army jacket with no shirt on beneath. His pale, white chest a stark contrast to the drab olive, he shuffled to the fridge where he found an O positive blood bag waiting for him in the meat drawers. He drained it into two of Clio’s cappuccino mugs and he popped them into the microwave. Humming
She took another smooth swallow of the scotch and examined the Vietnamese flag on the back of the jacket with a strange emptiness. “Do you always drink bagged blood?”
“Do ya always sneak up on people?” He asked her in that impenetrable Bostonian of his.
“Not always.”
“Well, if I were alive you would’ve scared me half to death.” His glance dropped to her glass. “Coffee?”
“Don’t mix the cups up.” She stood and moved to the island. “How’s Bliss?”
“She’s better. She’s starting to remember what happened.” He poured her a cup of coffee, pulled the milk out of the fridge, and set it in front of her. “She doesn’t want to believe it.”
“Isn’t the first stage always denial?” Cory mused.
“Yeah, if she were entering a 12-step program instead of an eternity of blood guzzling sin.” He leaned against the kitchen counter and sipped from his mug.
“Is Clee’s idea gonna work?” She asked as she tucked a honey lock behind her ear.
“I think, I hope, Mel’s going stir crazy, although she won’t show it. Calli, as irritating as she may be, doesn’t deserve this.”
Cory pursed her lips and looked at him with that wan expression she was famous for.
“Are you okay?” He reached across the counter and touched her wrist with the warm hand that had been holding the mug.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just fine.”
“I’m hungry,
Cory’s skin broke into gooseflesh at hearing the dead girl speak.
Cory tried to excuse herself.
“Sit down and act normal,”
Cory nodded. “How are you feelin’, Bliss?”
The girl spun her head in Cory’s direction from her place at the breakfast table. Her copper hair needed a wash and hung in greasy disarray. “Do I know you?” Her voice sounded monstrous as she learned to manipulate the dead, dry muscles in her larynx.
Cory tried hard not to stare, Bliss’s eyes were bruised and sunken, her skin had taken a pasty pallor, her lips a bluish tint, and her canines only faintly elongated.
“I’m dead. How do you think I’m feeling?” Bliss replied.
Clio and Ares stood in the kitchen’s doorway now, the only light coming from the hallway. Ares’ arms were folded over his chest and he had taken a wide, defensive stance. Clio looked over Bliss and took the seat across from her at the breakfast table.
“I wondered where the soirée had moved to,” Mel said as she nudged Ares aside to enter the kitchen. Cory jumped up and helped Mel to a seat.
“Bliss,” Clio began, “do you know who did this to you?”
Bliss looked at her with barely concealed contempt. “Yes, my boyfriend.”
Clio looked at her, apparently perplexed with the unexpected answer.
“Annie?” Bliss said and raised her eyebrows at Clio as though she were missing the obvious.
“Your boyfriend?” Clio asked her.
“My boyfriend, Annie Christ.” She sipped her mug and grimaced at the taste.
Clio brought her hand to her forehead and leaned her elbow on the table. “Yes, well, don’t you want to find Annie?” Clio asked without looking up.
“You want to find Calliope. I’m dead, not dumb.”
“Fine, I want to find Calli. Will you help me?”
Bliss looked smug, as though she had been waiting for Clio to ask her for help. “I’ll help you, if you help me.”
Ares snorted from the doorway, “What does the li’l corpse fancy? A sodding Barbie Dreamcrypt?”
Mel turned her head in his direction, and Clio groaned without turning around. “Please don’t help, we don’t need your input,” Clio said.
“Fine by me, you birds play ‘Placate the Vampire’ all you want, I’ll be outside having a smoke.” He slammed the kitchen door and Cory considered joining him.
They turned their attention back on Bliss.
“Name it,” Clio said.
Bliss’s dark expression brightened. “I want her gone.”
“What?” Clio shook her head, her face blank.
Bliss rolled her eyes and continued, “I want Annie, and that means, we find your sister, you take her somewhere far away from him.”
“Let me get this straight, the only way you’ll help me find my sister is if when we find her, I take her away from the man that has kidnapped her and turned you into a lamia?” Her amused expression confused Bliss. “Bliss, my dear, you abso-fucking-lutely have yourself a deal.”
Mel turned to
He sat in a chair next to Bliss and looked at her. “Do you remember what we talked about upstairs, how you can feel a pull in a certain direction? The blood calling you, but it’s almost so far away you can hardly notice it?”
Bliss nodded and said, “I have to become very quiet and listen to it?”
“You have to want it like nothing you’ve ever wanted before now, I know it’s Calliope we’re talking about here, but her blood is yours now and where she is, Annie is. You have to remember that, Bliss. Do you want to find Annie?”
“Yes,” she whispered so wistfully that Cory’s heart sank.
Bliss wrinkled her nose. “What is it?”
“It’ll help you, I promise,”
Bliss looked uncertain, but drank it anyway.
“Close your eyes and concentrate for a few minutes, we’ll be in the next room. You’re going to feel wild and out of control, like you’re drunk, hold onto that feeling, and we’ll find him.”
Clio looked at
“Peyote.”
“What?” Clio’s eyes widened.
“She’ll be fine, I’ll watch her,” he said.
“How can this possibly work? LA is huge,” Cory said.
“She’ll find them,”
“She hates her,” Clio said.
“Apparently Calliope is the only one standing between their love,”
“Don’t worry, we’ll find this mortal and our sister,” Mel said, she ran her fingers across Clio’s forehead. “Don’t fret.”
A crash and a shriek came from the kitchen.
“Bliss,”
Cory grabbed Mel and followed them. Ares lingered by the door.
Bliss stood with a knife to her wrist, blood spilling to the floor. It wasn’t a terrible cut, but she bled freely.
“It hurts,
Clio looked at
“Because when she centered in on her source, she found Calliope’s blood to be boiling with pain, she is, of course, merely trying to rid herself of it,” Mel whispered into Clio’s ear.
“Let’s go,” Clio said, her heart pounding. “Ares!”
“I’m on it, luv,” he jingled the car keys and was out the door.
Cory brought Mel with her to the
“Which way?” Ares demanded.
“Bliss, dearest, tell us where to go, the hurt will stop if we find her,” Mel coaxed.
Nothing would come from the shuddering, shaking girl and suddenly she muttered, “South. Big wide buildings near the water, near the sea. Oh,
Cory took Clio’s hand at that last statement.
“Where to, Historian?” Ares asked.
“Get on the 101 South,” she said. “Take the 5 to the 710, we’ll go to the docks?”
“The harbor. That’s what I was thinking, too,” Ares muttered.
Cory wondered if Clio was thinking straight. At this point, she was more inclined to trust Ares’ judgment.
Calliope was in pain and Cory prepared for the worst. Lights from the freeway illuminated her sisters’ faces in the car, and Cory studied them, transfixed by the terror of losing them.
A whimpering Bliss lay curled in Mel’s lap. Mel’s dark glasses reflected the headlights of oncoming traffic. Cory turned away before she got lost in those lights. She turned to her other sister.
Clio sat close to Ares. They murmured to one another just beneath Cory’s level of hearing. They’re deciding my sister’s fate. She shuddered and turned away from them, too.
Cory finally sat back and merely watched as the unsuspecting
3
“Do you think this will work?” Annie asked weakly. “Or am I just desperate for a cure?”
“I’m not going to question your reasons, Mr. Swann, your dedication to your project has been humbling,” Vandenheuval said as he looked out the corner of his eye. “If this is successful, would you consider the sister for me?” He attached Calliope’s catheters to his dialysis machine.
“You want Clio?”
“As a reward.”
“What do you want with Clio?” Annie’s voice was hardly more than a mutter now. Every syllable a struggle for him, he had frivolously spent the last of his time and strength pulling all of this together. The steroids had been the last lick, the final indignity he had inflicted upon his devastated immune system.
“I’d like to use her, maybe find the cure to disease, to age, maybe even death,” Vandenheuval said.
Annie snorted.
Vandenheuval moved from Calliope to the machine and back again. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.
“What if this is all a pipedream and that girl said anything I wanted to hear to save her own life?” Guilt was beginning to declare squatters’ rights in Annie’s mind.
“Sir, with all due respect, a corpse reanimated itself after it had been clinically dead for more than 12 hours, and, then there is,” he coughed into his hand and gestured toward Calliope, who should have been dead awhile ago.
His beautiful Snow White now looked like a corpse, tubes and wires hooked to her still, pale form. He had crushed out the light behind her eyes like a spent cigarette.
Vandenheuval was bent over Annie now, who lay on the bed next to hers, preparing to prep him for the procedure. “Are you ready, Mr. Swann? Do you still want to be restrained?”
Annie nodded his head numbly. The knowledge that he would die in this bed in less than an hour was beginning to take hold of him. He had spent his entire fortune banking on waking up afterward. He would die regardless.
The agony of the catheters surprised him, as she hadn’t made a peep when she went through it. He closed his eyes and faced the ceiling. His eyes snapped open and he tried to sit up.
He hadn’t the strength. Minutes were slipping by him now.
“Vandenheuval, move me closer to her. I want to hold her hand,” he said and looked at the doctor earnestly, “just in case.”
Vandenheuval nodded with understanding, pushed the beds closer together, and placed her cold hand in Annie’s. He turned to face her and was startled to find her looking directly at him.
Her sullen eyes were like a painting he had seen in the
He despised her.
Vandenheuval did not even ask Annie if he was ready. He turned the machines on. Machines that would drain Annie of his own blood and refill his veins with hers.
She has always been me, now I shall become her.
He tried to tear away from those enduring sapphires he had stolen the shine from. When he tried to pull his hand away, he was alarmed to find her grip had tightened on his weakened one and she would not let him turn away. Calliope wanted him to watch her die. She wanted to share this last, most intimate moment with him.
Suddenly, Annie saw himself for what he really was – a thief. He had stolen Inspiration and turned her into this absent, forlorn creature before him. Annie was suddenly overwhelmed with what he had done.
His life force ebbing, his own light beginning to dim, Annie felt cold all over. Calliope’s grip was beginning to loosen, but she did not let go and her eyes finally lost the little shine they had left.
“Calliope,” Annie said, but realized there was nothing was left to say. There were no more words, he no longer had the Inspiration, he no longer had the muse. There were no more words left for the woman he loved. The woman who drove him to his madness, to his sickness, the woman he could never have completely.
Until now.
4
They had finally decided to play a hot/cold game with Bliss. It seemed the only way to navigate through the maze of warehouses in the harbor. Of course, her screaming “warmer” or “colder” every couple of minutes only added the charm to Clio’s migraine.
Clio was at a loss. They had stopped the
That had been a half hour ago, the girl was moaning and ripping at her skin, trying to stop the fear and pain that had been invading her since her connection to Calliope.
Mel and Cory turned to Clio for the next move. They were stopped in front of a long block of warehouses in the loading dock section of
Bliss had been pacing the asphalt since. Clio didn’t know what to do and she looked desperately to Ares who shrugged. He leaned against his car, smoking a cigarette.
“Don’t you have anything to add?” She mumbled in his direction.
“This isn’t exactly the Storming of Normandy, pet, we’re using a vampire as a bloodhound to ferret out a serial killer, not my regular Friday night leisure, you know?” Ares looked at her seriously and then back to the asphalt. He dragged on his Lucky and offered her a grin, “Do you want my opinion on what you should do?”
She sighed audibly, “Yes, some help, please.”
“Talk to her, Historian, she’s connected to your bloody sister for Zed’s sake, talk to her.”
Clio looked at Bliss apprehensively and gave a determined nod. Her feet moved toward the girl and she put her hand on Bliss’s elbow. The girl jerked her head up at the touch. “Bliss?” Clio said.
“Something-something is happening!” Bliss said.
“What’s happening, Bliss? Do you know where she is? Can you feel her, can you feel Calli?” Clio tried to keep from shouting at her to get into that thick, foggy brain of hers.
“Something’s wrong! He’s doing something wrong!”
Color fled Clio’s face.
“No,” Bliss moaned, “no, she’s fading, I can’t feel it, I can’t feel her.” Her body relaxed, they had stopped in front of a warehouse with the lights on. “I don’t understand, I don’t know where she’s gone.”
Ares flicked his cigarette away and walked past Bliss into the parking lot she stood in front of. “What’s the bloke drive? There’s a right wicked Charger out here, Historian, any chance it’s his?”
Clio’s brows knitted together.
“Muscle car?” Ares prodded.
“That’s his, but how did you –”
“Because that is a rock star’s piece of machinery if I ever saw one.” He winked at her and drew his Glock. This was her signal to do the same.
A Taurus .38 semi-automatic emerged from her jacket and she checked the magazine the way Ares had taught her. She took the safety off and held it with both hands, she felt ridiculous, and hoped she could use it when the time warranted.
He looked up at an open window about forty feet above them. Clio stood beside him.
“This is going to be impossible,” she said.
“Never say die, pet.” He threw down the duffel he had been carrying and unzipped it. He pulled out some carabiners, and rope. The open window was like in institutional schools, with hinges along the bottom. He tied the rope to a small anchor and caught the corner of the open window after about six or seven attempts. Ares attached it to the rope and with one last look at her, began walking the wall up to the window.
Clio monitored his ascent, praying he didn’t alert the occupants.
“
“Good, I didn’t want her to get in the way.”
“Do you think he’ll get in?”
Clio watched him climb – his bleached blonde head a sharp contrast to his apparel. He was near the top when he looked in, and crawled into the window.
“He’s our only hope at this point,” Clio stated and looked down at the pistol she was gripping. “God help us.”
5
Crow opened his eyes to find his sister standing over him. She had a phone in her trembling hands, which she held out to him.
“Al?” He said and sat up. Crow thought his heart might burst inside his chest. She was scaring the shit out of him.
“Call her,” she said, her eyes wide and frightened.
“Is Gram –”
“She’s fine. Call Clio,” she shoved the phone in his face.
“What’s going on? You’re freaking me out.” He snatched the shaking phone from her hands. “Why do I need to call Clio?”
“Something terrible is about to happen if you don’t call and stop her right now.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
Crow’s gaze drifted to the white-haired woman lying in the bed. This was too much for
“Why won’t you call her?” She said.
“Shh, listen to me,” he placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently into a chair. “Tell me what happened.”
Her hands twisted into her skirt and her eyes teared up. “You don’t believe me.”
“Believe what? Al, you haven’t told me anything.”
“I had a terrible dream that something awful happened.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t remember,” she bit her lip and looked away.
“It was just a dream.”
“It wasn’t,” she said. “I know it wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
6
Long Beach
The door burst open and an orderly came flying through. Ares had tossed him like a bouncer from the warehouse. The orderly landed in front of Clio and she cocked the pistol in his face where he sat between her feet.
“Hey,” she said when she recognized him as the one who locked her in the bathroom.
“Tiger,” the orderly said with something like awe.
“Listen,” she looked at his name badge, “Dwayne. Do you know who Wonder Woman is?”
Dwayne nodded slowly.
“What does she use her magic lasso for?”
He looked at her blankly with sweat running down his brow. Ares joined them after propping the door open.
Clio smacked the orderly across the cheek with the Taurus. “What does she use her magic lasso for?” She asked him louder, beginning to lose her patience.
“To tell the truth,” he said.
“Do we understand each other?” She waggled the pistol for emphasis.
Ares sucked on his teeth and admonished him quietly, “She’s a bit riled, Dwayne, you don’t want to piss her off.”
“Yeah, I get you, Tiger,” Dwayne said.
“Do you have a woman in there and, mind you, think carefully before you open your mouth again.” Clio asked him.
“Yeah,” he said.
“How many more people are in there, not counting you?”
He had to think and counted in his head, “Ten.”
“Where is she being kept?”
“Kept?”
Clio smacked him heavily across the face with the gun again. “Dwayne, pay attention.”
“She’s in the med lab, in the corner,” Dwayne said and winced in anticipation of being hit again. He wasn’t disappointed. She hit him again.
“How many of you guys are armed?” Clio asked in response to Ares dangling the man’s confiscated weapon.
“Five guys. The rest are the medical staff.”
“Where is Annie?” The interrogation was beginning to bore her, she wanted to get in there and get Calliope out.
“Him and the Doc have been in the med lab for almost an hour, I haven’t seen him since they went in.”
With an expectant look to Ares, Clio asked, “Is there anything else?”
“Just this, luv,” he tossed away the cigarette he had been smoking and smashed his Glock into the back of Dwayne’s head. With deft hands, Ares hog-tied the orderly and tossed him into the dumpster. “Into the skip you go, mate.”
Ares nodded for Clio to follow him into the warehouse with Cory and Trent bringing up the rear. The war god opened the door from where he had it propped and slipped into the dark entryway. Light from below was the only illumination and their eyes quickly adjusted. Ares gave the rest a chance to size up the warehouse.
From where they walked in, the entrance was a concrete landing about ten or fifteen feet long, going to the left. A flight of stairs led to the main room below them, it was probably 6,000 square feet, with two corners curtained off. The floor was concrete and the few dozen pendant lamps created a halogen glow that lit the whole warehouse starkly. They stared down from their place on the landing, trying the shadows on for concealment.
“Are you ready, pet?” Ares asked her.
“As I’ll ever be,” she said.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re bag seems to be vibratin’,” he said and pointed to her knapsack.
“It’s my phone, we’re busy.”
“Bollocks.”
“What?” Clio asked.
“I hope your eyes have adjusted.”
“Why?”
“Because we’ve just been spotted.”
“Hey!” The orderly called.
The orderly put his hand on his pistol when Ares expertly tagged him in the right shoulder and then the left. Clio looked at him with a horrified expression.
“What? It was us or him, and it’s not like I blew matter out the back of his head,” Ares replied.
Clio’s gun trembled in her hand. “Which corner?” She whispered. Her head tossed back and forth between the two curtained corners in the back. The landing wasn’t high enough to see over the partitions.
The floor of the warehouse had about eight desks with computer equipment spread out on them, two of the four orderlies left squatted behind them. One of them squeezed off a couple rounds in their direction.
Ares grabbed the girls by the upper arms and pulled them back, “Get down.” Turning his 9mm sideways, he fired off two of his own in response. He clipped the monitor on the desk one of the guys was hiding behind. The man Ares had wounded was still spouting obscenities from where he lay on the concrete.
“Fuck, it’s all arse about face, we didn’t even plan this out,” Ares said. His pale gaze caught Clio’s silver one and held it for a moment. “Forgive me for this later,” he said and kissed the top of her head roughly.
“What?” She asked, but he was already headed down the stairs. This was going far too slow for any element of surprise. Annie had already been alerted to their presence.
Ares went down the flight with his 9mm blazing. The two orderlies were already firing when he hit the floor. Right in the middle of the fray, another Glock emerged from somewhere inside Ares’ coat, a beautifully matched sister to his other one. Ares fired the guns in synchronicity at the two crouched behind the computer desks. A heavy thud sounded behind the first desk and then the other.
Ares had taken them out swiftly and without expression.
A bullet whizzed by his shoulder from one of the curtained corners. Ares moved to the right partition and squeezed out six or seven shots into the curtain. A dull thump came from behind the pale green fabric.
A click behind his left ear finally caught his attention and he raised both pistols to the ceiling.
“Don’t move. Don’t even think about it, Bowser,” said the voice behind the gun.
A gun went off and Ares winced in anticipation of his head exploding. His hand found a warm, sticky wetness all over the back of his neck and the gunman behind him dropped to the floor lifelessly.
With slow, careful movements, he turned to see Clio’s pale, wide-eyed face from behind her .38.
“Put it down, pet, he’s gone, put it down,” Ares said. Or something to that effect, between the gun and pounding heart, Clio still couldn’t hear.
Clio lowered the Taurus and took a great gulp of air. “I followed you,” she said dumbly.
Ares smiled and shook his head. “I’m glad you did.”
A slow, biting one-man applause reverberated throughout the warehouse. Ares and Clio turned toward the sound simultaneously and Annie walked out of the other curtained corner.
“Bravo, precious, where did you learn to fire a gun like that?” Annie asked and looked Ares up and down, “Love the look.”
“Annie,” Clio began.
“Zip it, kitten. I’m the only one talking here, do you read me?”
He waited for her to nod her head.
“Good. Now, let me guess, you’re not here because you were concerned I missed my studio time, now are you?”
Clio swallowed and opened her mouth to say something. Annie’s hands were behind his back as he walked towards them.
Ares raised his weapon at Annie. “That’s far enough, mate, not a step closer. Where’s the bleedin’ Poet?”
“Oh, what is with this asshole? Are you fucking around on my Crow, Princess?” Annie asked as he pulled a gun from his waistband and shot Ares in the chest.
“No!” Clio ran over to where Ares dropped.
“Bugger, I really should’ve seen that one comin’,” he said and passed out.
Annie looked up at the landing and said, “Why don’t you two come down here and join us, or I could put a nasty hole in Petunia’s head here.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Clio called to
“Do tell, little muse, do tell.” Annie grabbed her upper arm and hauled her in. The muzzle of his gun dug into her temple, and he confiscated her Taurus. “Down, now,” he said to Trent and Cory.
They descended the stairs, their weapons abandoned, their hands showing.
“Clee-” Cory began with remorse in her eyes.
“Why haven’t we met before, sweetmeat?” Annie eyed Cory appreciatively. The dancer cast him a hateful glance.
“Leave her alone,
Clio choked on her relief.
“Uh, how you feelin’, baby?” Annie asked. He looked surprised.
“Alive, no thanks to you.” Calliope looked like a stiff wind could knock her over. She pulled off the gauze on her hands with her teeth.
Annie seemed thrown from his game at the surprise guest star. “Why don’t you join your sister’s little friends over there, Calli?” His gun pointed toward Trent and Cory.
Calliope labored over to Cory, who offered her arm to support her. She accepted it gratefully. Cory looked at her sister’s mutilated hands and issued a sharp intake of breath.
“Are you okay?” Cory asked.
“Never been better, Flashdance,” Calliope replied with a wink.
“What are you going to do with us?” Clio finally asked Annie.
“I’m not sure I’m going to do anything with you, Precious, I might shoot the whole gang of you and make my getaway.” Annie considered this for a moment, “Or I might behead you all.”
Clio paled.
“I have options. They didn’t,” Annie said and pushed the pale green wall down to expose what remained of his medical staff, his only witnesses. The three nurses had bullet holes through their foreheads.
“
Annie’s face twisted into an ugly red mask. He had reached his limit with her, every moment she was conscious she made him more miserable and immeasurably insane. His hand felt around for the instrument tray behind him and he found the bone saw he was looking for.
“You still don’t get it, do you? I feel better now. I feel stronger now. You can’t talk to me like that anymore,” Annie screamed in a strangled, high-pitched whine. “You won’t talk to me like that anymore.” He tossed Clio aside and launched himself towards Calliope with the saw in one hand and his gun in the other.
“No!” Clio screamed as she dropped to the floor in front of Ares and grappled with his Glock.
Annie saw Clio and he threw the bone saw across the room. His arm snaked around Calliope’s throat and pulled her in front of him. He pointed his gun at Clio and opened fire.
Clio reacted by firing off the Glock from her place on the floor, she squeezed the trigger again and again until the magazine was spent and all she could hear was empty clicking.
Annie had used her sister as a shield.
Calli was shuddering and gasping on top of him from where they fell back.
Somewhere in the warehouse, Cory was screaming.
Clio threw the gun away as though it tried to bite her and ran to her Calliope.
Cory scrambled to her feet and joined Clio to pull Calli’s broken and bleeding frame away from Annie.
Three shots had gone through Calliope and into Annie. His body lay lifeless on the stained concrete.
Calliope’s entire body quaked in shock and blood ran from the side of her mouth. Her breathing was weak and erratic.
Clio pulled her sister’s head into her lap and whispered into her hair, speaking in great gasps. “You’ll be okay, you’ll be okay, you just need some rest, it’ll heal up, and in a few years, the scars will be completely gone. I’m sorry I killed him, Calli, but he was going to mutilate you,” she said and kissed the top of Calliope’s head repeatedly.
“Calli?” Cory asked, examining the bullet holes in her torso. Blood pumped from the wounds. “Something’s wrong, something’s really wrong, Clio.”
Calliope choked on her blood and her body coursed with violent shuddering. “Clee,” she tried weakly, her face was a knot of pain, fear, and confusion.
Clio drew her eyebrows together. “I know it hurts, but you have to relax and rest to let it heal.”
Calliope shook her head fiercely. “I’m cold and I can’t feel my legs.”
“What do you mean you’re cold?” Clio ripped the nightgown and looked at the gunshot wounds. She wasn’t healing, the blood wasn’t slowing, and Calliope was becoming ice cold. Panic rose in her throat, “What do you mean you can’t feel your legs?”
“Don’t worry,” Calliope said and tried to force a smile.
Clio’s fingers slipped along her sister’s spine to see if she could feel anything and her hand came back dripping red. Her stomach clenched and she stared at her bloody hand with fascinated horror. “Stop bleeding.”
A sudden rattle choked out from deep inside Calliope as she tensed up. Her bloody hand reached to claw at Clio’s face as though she were trying to hold on to something. Calliope’s hand slipped away, leaving a bloody trail on her sister’s cheeks.
“The clepsydra done?” Calliope said and let out a final choking breath. Blood bubbled out of her beautiful mouth and she lay still.
Clio blinked stupidly a few times and, very simply, said, “What?”
She looked at Cory with confusion. Cory wore the same staggered expression. Clio repeated her small, quiet, simple question, “What?”
She shook her sister gently, “Calliope, wake up. Calliope, wake up, Calliope, wake up, stop it, stop messing with me.” There was no response from her cold, still sister. “Calli?” She shook her harder, “Calli? Calli? Calli? Calli? Calli?” The name climbed the musical scales as they fell from her lips. Clio buried her face in her sister’s hair and sobbed, “It isn’t funny, please, Calliope, it isn’t funny anymore.” She wept into Calliope’s neck.
Cory brought a bloodstained, trembling hand to her mouth, her head shaking rapidly in denial. “Wake her up, why don’t you wake her up?” Her breath came in great, hitching gasps. “Clee, what did you do? Clee, what did you do?” She shrieked this last.
Trent, who had been watching all of this with disbelief, grabbed the dancer by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Cory, look, you need to calm down.”
Police sirens sounded from far off in the distance.
7
Ares slowly sat up. “Bloody hell! Look at my bleedin’ jacket!” He fingered the hole in his jacket.
Quiet. It was terribly quiet. Ares frowned.
He stood and found Clio scooting away from a bloody mess that somehow resembled Calliope.
“Clio?” Ares said.
He repeated himself, “Clio?” Ares kept one eye on Clio as he bent down beside Calliope and felt for a pulse.
“Don’t touch her!” Clio screamed, breaking the silence.
He lifted his finger to his lips and put his head to Calliope’s bloody chest, it was quiet and still. The sirens were getting closer. He let out the breath he hadn’t known he had been holding and whispered, “What happened here?”
The
Ares looked at Calliope’s body and called to Mel, “Open the boot!”
She shook her head.
“The trunk, the bleedin’ trunk!” He gathered the dead muse in his arms and carried her up the stairs. “
Mel was still feeling for the lock when Ares reached her. “Move aside, Tragedy. Can you get Bliss out of the driver’s side and back into the backseat?”
“I think so,” she said. “What’s happening? Where’s
“Not now,” Ares said and deposited the dead muse into the trunk.
Bliss pulled away from Mel and bolted for the landing. “Annie!”
“
Ares ran back in and jumped the flight of stairs. He crouched down beside the historian. “Clio, luv, we’ve got to go,” he said.
She was eerily silent.
“I will pick you up if I have to, but I don’t fancy goin’ to jail for this mess. Do you hear me, Historian?”
She didn’t move.
Ares wondered if she even breathed. “I said, ‘Get to your bloody feet!’”
His hands reached down to lift her and she reacted violently, roughly pushing and slapping at him to keep him away.
Clio’s face crumbled and an anguished wail was ripped from her, a sound Ares would never forget. A horrifying, heart-wrenching sound he never wanted to hear again.
“My sister! I killed my sister, I killed my sister, I killed my sister!” Clio screamed this again and again, a madness fouling every word.
Ares did the only thing he could think of – he hit her. She lost consciousness and he picked her up.
“I’m sorry, pet, I truly am,” he said as he carried her up the stairs.
Ares tossed Clio into the back seat and slid in behind the steering wheel. He groaned with pain.
“Can you drive?” Mel asked from where she sat beside him. “Are you injured?”
“I’ll live,” he said. The tires screamed their disapproval as they fled the scene moments before a police unit spotted them.
“What happened?”
Ares ignored her.
“For pity’s sake, Ares, I’m blind, not deaf,” Mel said. “What the hell happened in there? Where are my sisters?”
They couldn’t speak.
Mel’s breath caught in her throat and she asked, “Ares, what did you put in that trunk?”
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