Friday, July 4th
A Richard (slang, origin English, probably from Shakespeare) - a deformed man
It behooved a thief to stay trim and able to run short distances. A case in point was that half the cops Penelope knew were overweight and wouldn’t be able to chase her down in a footrace. Not that being in a footrace with the police really mattered, considering the level of present day technology to include infrared cameras, helicopters with spotters, and trained police dogs, but where there was a loophole, there was an opportunity. Consequently, she did wind sprints for an hour every other day, and she could run a hundred-yard dash in less than twelve seconds. The thought that went through her mind, as she found an even breathing rhythm whiling running through the backstreets of downtown Dallas, was a result of her reasoning that these strange people didn’t have a hope in hell in catching her.
Penelope knew that she didn’t want to take chances. She didn’t head straight for her car because if they got their hands on that, they would know exactly who she was, and it could lead them back to Jessica Quick. After all, Penelope had never been caught. As a matter of fact, Penelope had never even been fingerprinted. Jacob had wanted it that way because he had known the path in life that he was leading his daughter down. Just because one got caught didn’t mean necessarily that they wouldn’t be able to get away somewhere down the line. Positive identification through the use of fingerprints would mean that the police had the upper hand. Unless, of course, they didn’t have her fingerprints.
The people who were now after her wouldn’t be putting handcuffs on her and rushing her off to jail. Au contraire. They might be rushing her off to the cemetery. Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Penelope thought woefully. What have you gotten me into?
Penelope hadn’t thought about her friend for long minutes, and a nagging seed of doubt assailed her. Was it possible that Jeremy had tried to hit the house at 26 Durfrene Row while Penelope had been occupied with her mother’s illness?
No, he would have let me know, Penelope assured herself. He would have because that’s our gig. That’s how we keep ourselves a little more secure. And he would have told me because he knows that I need the cash right now. He would have, dammit. And oh, crap.
Remote street lights made diffuse yellow pools at intervals on the dark street. The street opened into a row of old buildings that were used for lofts upstairs with run-down industrial businesses on the bottom floors. The first floor windows were dark and secured with wrought iron bars to prevent idiots from breaking in. The upper floors were lit, and Penelope could hear the strains of a rowdy July 4th party on nearby roofs.
Penelope slowed to a jog. She didn’t want to expend all of her energy yet. While she jogged, she removed the single leather glove and put it in a pocket. Then she took the latex glove off the other hand and stuck it into the pocket with the other gloves. She loosened her black top shirt and scanned the street signs for her location. Then unexpectedly she ran smack dab into a group of young men who were coming around a corner.
One of them caught her easily in his arms and said good-naturedly, “Bitch, don’t go running ‘round corners here. You going to cause some shit.” They all smelled of beer and pot and were joyfully mellow. Another one laughed and said, “Got yourself a blonde, Antoine. Whatchu going to do with her?”
Penelope looked over her shoulder. Some of the emotion on her face must have transmitted itself to the man holding her easily in his arms. He effortlessly placed her upright with his hands still wrapped around her upper arms and said, “What’s wrong?”
“Brother,” said another one warningly, “she look like she be the one in trouble.”
“Someone after you?” insisted the first one.
“Let me go,” Penelope said softly. “Then stay out of their way.”
“Huh?”
“Bitch doesn’t want our company,” said another one. “Let her go, Antoine.”
Antoine let Penelope go and shoved her roughly in the direction she had been headed. “Have it your way, sugar,” he said with curious resolve.
Penelope breathed a sigh of relief and jogged off. After a moment she tossed her head over her shoulder and loudly repeated her caution to the lingering group of young men. She didn’t stop moving while she called back. “Stay out of their way! I mean it!”
“Stay out of whose way?” Antoine asked of no one in particular.
“Bitch has lost her mind.”
“That’s what happens when you’re a woman,” advised another one gravely.
The people dressed in the same color as the woman who had just barreled into them came around the same corner causing the group of young men to part like the Red Sea. All conversation came to an abrupt halt. Antoine looked over his shoulder and saw that the pretty young woman with the platinum curls was already gone.
Her absence didn’t seem to matter to the people chasing her. They flowed after her in a strange solemn manner. Then the really big one came, and Antoine felt the rough brick surface of the building rubbing his shoulder blades as he went as far back as he was able to go. The dim yellow light of the street lamp above showed the weird bright mask and the obscene bulging shapes under the dark robe the big man was wearing. He lumbered down the street and paused just at the spot where Antoine had held her in his arms.
The other young men were attempting to fade into the woodwork. One was backed into the same building as Antoine. Another was crouching in the gutter of the street. A third was backing away down the sidewalk with large staring eyes. The others were trying to do their best impressions of The Invisible Man. There was only the sound of the fireworks bursting above.
The huge being turned his painted mask toward Antoine, and Antoine saw his eyes clearly in the beam of jaundiced light. One eye was colored blue, the other was a contrasting brown, and both stared at him as if pinning a live bug onto a board with a long needle. They are looking at me. Antoine shuddered helplessly.
For an instant, the massive man in the bizarre mask watched him. Even while he studied the young man, Antoine had the oddest feeling that the man behind the mask was sniffing the air as if searching for something he’d lost. Then the ungainly multicolored mask swiveled in the direction that the girl had run, and the big man lumbered off.
Antoine had an urge to run in the opposite direction. Before he could bring himself to move, another man came around the corner as if he were taking an evening stroll. This one looked very normal in comparison, and Antoine almost breathed a sigh of relief before it occurred to him that although his appearance was normal, this next one was anything but. He was around thirty years old and a few inches under six feet tall. His long black hair flowed over his shoulders and undulated gently behind his powerful shoulders. His observant brown eyes, set in a handsome face, looked over the group of trembling young men and found them wanting. An annoying knowing smile quirked over his features, and he passed them wordlessly.
Finally, Antoine said, “What the fuck was that?”
“I think maybe we should go home,” said another one. “Next thing you know, a SWAT team is going to be running through the streets and everyone’s going to the pokey for the night. I don’t want to be in a common cell with any of those motherfuckers.”
“I don’t want to know, and I don’t want to ever know,” said another one. “Shit man. They have twenty bars still open on Lower Greenville. Let’s go.”
Antoine was thinking of the girl dressed in black and wearing a black knit cap just like someone who was committing a crime. Whatever she was into, she was in deep shit.
*
The watching man entered the house and immediately suppressed the chill of fear that threatened to inundate him. The house was filled with the spirits of the dead, the spirits of the underworld who should have gone to join their loved ones. Their twisted presences overwhelmed the atmosphere of the large house on Durfrene Row and circled it with their malevolence. The man knew precisely why his enemy had chosen this place as his headquarters. He would feel at home here, and the evilness would protect his perverted purposes.
The watching man was drawn toward the basement. He knew that he didn’t have much time. What was calling him was coming from the basement. It took him a minute to find the pantry and the narrow door in the back that led downward. But he descended into the depths of the basement and couldn’t prevent the goose bumps that ran unchecked down his arms at the wretched air down there. The dead walk here. Oh, Anthony, what have you done?
Using a flashlight he had brought with him, he discovered that the safe was empty and that his enemy had been robbed of the very thing he had taken from the tribe. But the watching man discovered something far more sinister. He noticed the blood on the dumbwaiter’s doors and knew that the thief had bled there. The thought of what it meant made his lips curl in consternation. She didn’t have much of a chance of survival now. Not unless he helped her.
It was true that she had been clever enough to escape a house filled with supernatural beings. And she had become aware that her proximity would ensure her doom. The watching man’s head came up as he thought about what it meant to him and the task he had come to complete. He closed his eyes briefly. When he reopened them, he dabbed his finger into the still sticky blood of the thief and smeared it on the coyote fetish. Then he wiped the blood away from the dumbwaiter door and cast a handful of dirt on top to obscure it.
Finally, the watching man removed a compact cell phone from a shirt pocket and called the police to report the thief. He even provided an accurate description.
*
The foot traffic on the downtown streets was getting more congested as Penelope moved determinedly south. Her hurried jog was getting some interested looks, but most people were looking skyward and watching the seemingly endless fireworks show.
Looking frequently behind her, Penelope didn’t see anything or anyone except the people meandering through the streets who were supposed to be meandering through the streets. She didn’t see a giant in a colorful mask that would have stood out like a sore thumb. Nor did she see anyone else wrapped up in a serious pursuit of a thief.
Penelope came upon a Dallas Area Rapid Transit station and slowed to a walk. At this time of night on a 4th of July Friday, DART was busy. It was even more so considering that fares had been forgiven for the night so that people would be encouraged to use the trains instead of drinking and driving. A couple hundred people were milling about. Some were waiting on companions. Others were going to the Trinity Fest. Most kept an engrossed eye on the lively and bright skies. Although the vast majority was dressed in shorts and T-shirts, there were some in long pants and others who were dressed in suits as if they had just come from a fancy party. Dressed in full-length black pants and shirt, Penelope didn’t particularly stand out.
With a leisurely hand she reached up and removed the knit cap, revealing a head full of platinum curls. A few men looked at her then, and she ignored them as she weaved her way through the crowd toward the closest point to where the transit train would pull up to the station.
Dropping the knit cap to her side, Penelope allowed it to fall into a garbage can already filled with party debris. She shifted the cloth bag over her shoulder so that it was on the opposite side of her body and casually looked around. She had been here for several minutes already and didn’t want to linger any more than was necessary. The simple truth was that the DART trains were full, and people were in no hurry to get off or on. The train was late, and would continue to be late, until the crowds dissipated early in the morning.
She stopped behind a crowd of twenty-ish men and women who were cheerfully discussing the pros and cons of party colleges. They had narrowed it down to Louisiana State University and the University of Texas. “Baton Rouge, man,” said one. “New Orleans Mardi Gras proximity. Babes flashing flesh for beads. You know you can buy a hundred strands of beads on the net for $19.99 plus shipping? Do you know how many titties that equates to?”
“Austin, bro. They do a lot more than flash,” replied a second young man scornfully.
“Is that all you think about, Jason?” asked a pretty brunette girl in a middy shirt and shorts that were short enough to reveal the bottom line of her buttocks. She also had a ring in her naval and about ten piercings along the curve of her ears, all filled with silver and gold rings. She all but glittered in the brassy fluorescent lights of the DART station.
Penelope blinked.
Jason chuckled lecherously and salaciously nuzzled the brunette’s neck. “No, of course it’s not all I think about,” he said, clearly not meaning it.
“Oh, hey, baby,” said the one who favored LSU. Penelope realized that he was talking to her. “What’s with the all-black look?”
“I’m a professional thief,” Penelope said seriously. “A bunch of really weird people are after my ass, and if I don’t get on a train pretty damn quickly, then they’re going to rip me up.”
The group of young men and women simply stared at her.
Penelope cast a long glance over her shoulder at the crowd behind her. She saw dozens of multi-cultured people in T-shirts and shorts. Black, brown, and pink mixed easily as they had come together to celebrate. One woman dressed in a purple bikini top and blue jean cut-offs was spraying herself with a bottle mister. Another man was selling fluorescent armlets and necklaces to parents with school-aged children. There was a group of cops on the far side of the platform, who were giving the crowd their usual eagle-eyed stare.
Then there was the subtle movement of people dressed in black. They melted through the crowd like wraiths making their malevolent escapes from an ancient cemetery. Her head twisted slowly as she scanned with growing alarm. There were a half-dozen of them throughout the teeming train station, all making their way toward where she was standing, and Penelope didn’t have anywhere to run. What are they? Bloodhounds?
It was when Penelope was considering jumping on the DART tracks themselves and hauling ass for parts elsewhere, that the train pulled in to the station and began to unload passengers. Many were drunk and happy and blissfully unaware that anything else was going on.
They flowed around her like water released from a dam, and the group of young people who had been arguing the best qualities of party colleges vanished from Penelope’s view. She slithered like a reptile as she made her way inside a car and braced herself on the opposite side of the train so that she could watch who was coming inside. The passengers came and went in droves, eager to be on their way. When the car was full, the doors shut as if they were magically aware of the state of occupation. A moment later the train lurched, but it moved no further.
Penelope was aware of her heart beating frantically. The train pitched forward again and halted just as abruptly. It felt as though someone had pulled it to a stop.
There were a dozen frustrated grumbles from the occupants of the car as many looked forward and out the windows as if that would explain away the delay. Penelope merely pressed herself up against the glass window a little harder, trying to will herself the power of invisibility. The voices faded away as more fireworks thundered above.
Then there was a light tapping that was reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard. She tilted her head to look around the body of a very obese man wearing a Hawaiian shirt with surfers on it. She immediately bit the inside of her mouth.
The beautiful woman with the long black hair and the hazel eyes stood on the platform looking inside the car. She had her head slightly inclined and peered at the crowd as if silently willing them to move. Penelope heard a confused whisper as several people realized that something wasn’t quite right but had trouble putting a name to their unspoken anxiety.
Catching Penelope’s eye the woman smiled, and Penelope distantly heard someone gasp. Long fingernails painted the color of blood tapped at the windows silently demanding entrance. Certain that the eye-catching woman with the chilling persona was coming through the door one way or another, Penelope deliberately looked away.
With a sudden stomach-dropping lurch the train slowly pulled out of the station and toddled on its way to the Trinity Fest. Penelope tried and failed to get her knees to stop shaking.
She had just breathed in a reviving gulp of air when something loudly thudded on top of the car. Several people looked up in bewilderment but didn’t know what to make of the abrupt noises.
But Penelope had a very good idea.