“Aye?” Terrible hit him again, more causen he wanted to than causen he needed to. “Iffen you had a brain, you ain’t would have fucked with Bump.”
He slipped his knife from his pocket and flicked out the blade. Roley’s eyes widened; his mouth opened, ready—Terrible guessed—to start arguing or begging or whatany the fuck else he were wanting to do, but Terrible didn’t give him the chance. He slid the knife across Roley’s throat, and watched as the defiant look on Roley’s face was replaced with the cold blankness of death.
Ten minutes or so later he heard the car pull up outside. Brian’s car, so he guessed. He got up from the chair in the corner—he’d been having a smoke, tryna think on what all Roley had said and what it might mean iffen Slick’s death had nothing to do with the rapes—and crossed the room to stand next to the door. Right where he could grab Brian soon’s Brian walked in.
He didn’t bother moving Roley’s body. What difference it made? None. Bump said on the phone that Lacey and Vole didn’t want to see it or any like that, that he thought they ain’t knew what Roley was doing. Terrible guessed he’d be talking to them later just the same.
The door opened. Terrible was already moving, driving his left fist into the face of—
Some dude he’d never seen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WASN'T UNTIL he’d finished tying the dude up—he’d dumped Roley in the corner to clear the chair—that he really noticed that smell Essie’d mentioned, sickly-sweet like cheap soap. Noticed how itchy he felt, too. Not bad; well, obviously not bad or he’d have noticed it faster. But still there, an irritation just under his skin, getting worse every second.
Uncomfortable. The way he’d felt out at Chester Airport. The way he felt sometimes when Chess opened that box she had with all the dark magic in it to show him something.
Made sense, he guessed, if the dude were a witch or worked at that Peace Factory. Even if their magic were shitty, he still might have enough power for Terrible to feel it. Chess told him he had some “ability,” was the way she said; not a lot but more than some. Which was kinda cool, he guessed, but it ain’t felt so good then, touching this dude who had magic himself.
But touching Chess ain’t made him feel that way—well, no, touching Chess made him feel like somebody shoved a live wire down his throat and electricity was sizzling through his whole body, but not causen of magic. Or not causen of that kind of magic. Were some other kind of magic did that. The kind a lot more dangerous, a lot fucking scarier. The kind nobody could just do a spell to get rid of, because she carried it around with her everywhere she went and it made her glow from the inside when he looked at her.
Was this Brian, he’d tied up? And he’d been wrong on Archie and Brian being the same—well, aye, he were definitely wrong on that.
And aye, were Brian, causen he had a driver’s license in the wallet Terrible dug out of he pocket just before he stirred. Terrible reached out and gave him a light smack on the cheek, then another, to speed the process. Or maybe just causen it were fun.
Brian’s eyes opened. He looked at Terrible all dazed and heavy-lidded.
Fast, before he could recall where he was, what was happening, Terrible said, “Where the magic at?”
Brian blinked.
Terrible cocked his fist. “The magic you doing. Where you keeping it.”
Brian caught sight of Roley’s body; his eyes got real wide as he stared at it. So wide Terrible could see the whites all around. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Felt real fucking good when his nose crunched under Terrible’s fist. “Where you keeping the magic you made. Oughta just gimme the tell now, dig, be easier for you.”
Tears ran down Brian’s cheeks; blood ran over his mouth and chin from his nose. He looked at Roley’s body again. “Please don’t kill me.”
Another one who ain’t could just die like a man. Terrible sighed. “Won’t kill you, iffen you give me what I’m asking for. Where you keeping the magic? At the Factory?”
“Yeah,” Brian said, after a pause. “It’s there.”
“Who you got working it with you? Wanting names, dig.”
Brian hesitated, but only for a second before listing eight people. Terrible found them names in Brian’s phone, and sent em all a text to meet Brian at the Factory in half an hour.
Then he picked up the roll of duct tape he’d bound Brian to the chair with. He could just knock Brian out again to take him to the Peace Factory, but he still had some questions to ask and he wanted to get moving. Timmy Vee oughta be close to ready now, and a chance always existed somebody might see what were happening so best to move fast.
Besides, now he was in it he just wanted to get it done. He ain’t had to think or plan anymore; this were the good part, the best part, where he just got to do he job however he wanted.
“Hey,” Brian said, as Terrible cut the tape on his ankle and squeezed it hard enough to send the message that Brian shouldn’t try kicking, “you know, this isn’t necessary. We’re going to make a lot of money off this. I mean a lot. Maybe millions. Why don’t you take a cut? Just look the other way, and we give you, say, ten percent.”
Terrible ignored him and kept wrapping the tape around his ankles and then connecting them, leaving enough tape between that Brian’d still be able to hobble but not enough that he could run.
“Fifteen. Fifteen percent, how about that? You have no idea how successful this is going to be. This sex spell has to be felt to be believed, and we have the marketing—why don’t you try it out? I’ll give you a sample. Women will throw themselves at you. You’ll see. They’ll be begging you for sex, and then begging for more. And you’ll be just as satisfied. Guaranteed.”
Terrible didn’t respond cepting cutting the tape over Brian’s left wrist and yanking his arm behind his back. Not only was he not interested, he wouldn’t be interested even if he was interested. What was the point of having a woman beg for more if it were all a lie? Iffen all he wanted was getting inside some random dame, he could do it himself. He had, for years. But he wanted more than that now. He did. He wanted it to matter, to … to mean something.
And what was the point of an easy answer like that. Where did it lead. Nowhere good, in his experience. Easy answers got to be an addiction; Terrible had spent his whole life seeing people reach for easy but find they really grabbed hard without realizing it.
The day he couldn’t satisfy a woman on his own was the day he gave up, anyway.
“Seriously.” Brian’s voice got faster, his words more jerky, as Terrible’s silence started registering and the tape binding his wrists together got tighter. Brian’s skin were all dry and flaked, like he washed he hands dozens of times a day or some shit. Why he used cheap soap, probably, went through so much of it. “I—I know the way we started the spell isn’t the best, okay? Nobody likes what that required. But we couldn’t get the power we needed any other way. Believe me, we tried.”
Terrible grabbed Brian under the arm and jerked him to his feet. That awful itchy-sweet smell got worse. Fuck, the Chevelle were gonna smell like that when he were done. “’sgo.”
He started shoving Brian toward the door, tuning out Brian’s babble as they went. More shit on how amazing his spell was, how rich Terrible could be. As Chess would say, blah blah blah.
He waited til they was in the car and out of the parking lot, away from the storage spaces, before he started asking more questions. Waited til he got a text from Timmy Vee saying he were all set up at the Factory. Best to hold the silence as long as he could. Dudes like Brian were used to fighting with words, using them to fuck with people and cheat em; it scared em when they found somebody who wouldn’t talk.